The business end of the Premierships with play-offs and European places at stake

The finale of the season – the play-offs for the National Champions Trophy and places in next season`s European spots.

And it`s a cutthroat business – two one-off semi-finals for both the men and women on Saturday and one-off finals on Sunday, and it`s winner-take-all in each of the games, so there’s no hiding place.

The Premiership champions, that is Western Wildcats men and Watsonians women, have already secured the second European spot, but the top places will go to this weekend`s winners. If the teams are one in the same, then the second European spot will be transferred to the losing finalist.

But there is a further carrot for the winning finalist. The European Hockey Federation have just confirmed the EHL qualifiers for next season following the recent Euro tournaments. There is no change in the men, that is Sunday`s winner will play in the prestigious EHL, but the women`s champion will be promoted to the EHL for the first time as a result of Watsonians and Clydesdale Western`s medal finishes in the Trophy events – the Scots have moved from ninth to seventh in the ranking.

So this is the business end of the season.

Saturday`s semi-finals are as follows – Western Wildcats v Edinburgh University and Grange v Watsonians in the men`s while the women`s pair Watsonians v Edinburgh University and Clydesdale Western v GHK.

As you would expect, Premiership form would suggest that all these games will be close – there was never more than two goals between the competing sides in the league, and in most games the margin was even narrower. So to predict winners is a fruitless exercise.

The women come first on Saturday and the opener is Clydesdale Western taking on GHK. In the league Clydesdale triumphed 3-1 in the first outing but were held to a 1-1 draw in the return, a result that ultimately lost them the Premiership title. GHK are newcomers to these penultimate stages but have reached there on the back of a very successful season that saw them finish third. They have lost only three games in the league and have shown that they can live with the top sides now. And in Lucy Williamson they have one of the league`s top goal scorers.

Clydesdale come into the tie having finished third in the recent EuroHockey Club Trophy 11 – and they finished strongly with three powerful results.

The second tie is a repeat of last weekend`s Scottish Cup final which was won by Edinburgh University in a shoot-out against neighbours Watsonians after a sensational 4-4 draw in normal time. There is no reason to believe that Saturday`s match will not be just as close.

However, aside from the cup outcome, Watsonians won the league matches 3-1 and 5-3, won all five top six matches and had a successful Euro campaign in Czechia – so Keith Smith`s charges will always be confident.

But Watsonians will certainly have to put the tabs on Edinburgh`s Cat Nelli who scored a hat-trick in the cup final and also notched the winner in the shoot-out.

And so to the men.

First up is the all-Edinburgh affair between Grange and Watsonians – this could in reality be for the second European spot if Western Wildcats win the other semi-final.   And that would be a first for Watsonians. Dan Coultas`s men did very well to be solid contenders for a play-off spot but fell away slightly in the final run-in – after a couple of wins they finished with two draws and a defeat.

In contrast Grange upped their game at the same stage with four wins and a draw, but their Euro sojourn in Lisburn was challenging and finished without a medal.

However, despite the statistics quoted above, this looks like being a close one.

The final game sees Premiership winners Western Wildcats take on an Edinburgh University side still on a high having just won the Scottish Cup for the first time.

Wildcats proved to be the most consistent side in the men`s competition, they won the league by a six point margin, winning 14 of their 16 encounters, and finished eleven points ahead of the Edinburgh students in fourth place.   But there was not much to separate the sides in the head to head although Wildcats clawed their way to victory in both, it was only 3-2 and 6-5.   It would not take much to turn these games around.

At the other end of the spectrum there are the relegation play-offs as to which sides will play in next season`s Premiership… that is, the team finishing in eleventh place in the top flight or the runners-up in the second tier National League.

So how does it pan out this Sunday – in the women Hillhead will play Dundee Wanderers while Inverleith take on Kelburne in the men`s.- and again it is winner-take-all.

 

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