So much hangs on this last match... (From Penarth Times)

So much hangs on this last match...

NO-ONE can deny it's been an interesting season again, but after 21 league fixtures and a couple of cup ties, incredibly everything hinges on the last match.

In what is rapidly becoming an end-of-season tradition for Penarth, the curtain comes down with a re-arranged fixture at Bedlinog.

Only this time, there's something riding on the result and, not to put too fine a point on it, promotion's the name of this game.

The winner will, barring a bizarre series of upsets, join champions-elect Penallta in Division 3 (South East) next season.

It's simply too close to call.

The Foxes have won this fixture in the last two seasons and ran out 29-17 winners at the Athletic Field in February.

Penarth have won a remarkable eight consecutive away games and are undefeated since the Bedlinog game, winning four on the trot and scoring freely throughout.

The good news is that Bedlinog themselves haven't shown any great form of late, having played only two games in the last six weeks.

A try-less 6-0 home win against Taff's Well a fortnight ago was augmented by a comfortable if unspectacular 25-11 home win against relegation-haunted Llandaff last Saturday.

The mathematics are remarkably simple.

Now that recent results have removed Cilfynydd and Taff's Well from the race, neither of them can now match Penarth's 48 points.

This leaves Bedlinog in sole pursuit.

With five games outstanding, the Foxes are nine points adrift of the Seasiders, but with a dramatically inferior points-and-try-scoring record.

This means they really have to win four of these matches and with an away fixture at Penallta still to come, next Saturday's game is nailed on as the decider.

There it is, then. A win for Penarth would give them 51 points and leave them in a position where Bedlinog couldn't realistically overhaul them.

The key for the Seasiders, as ever this season, lies between numbers 1 and 9.

The home game was a clear win for Penarth up front, but despite taking a pasting in the tight, Bedlinog capitalised on the prodigious boot of their outside half and out-ran the Seasiders in the loose.

There simply isn't any alternative to keeping it tight for the Seasiders on this occasion if they are to end a decade and a half of league rugby with a long-awaited and richly-deserved first promotion.