THERE WILL be a mad scramble for points today in the National Premier League (NPL).
With two scheduled rounds of matches to be played, each point is even more important as some teams vie to stay in the league while other hunt a semi-final place. Of the 10 teams, Seba, who will be idle today, look dead and buried.
They are not expected to win their two remaining games: against Arnett Gardens and Tivoli Gardens.
Wadadah who meet western Jamaica counterparts Reno and Olympic Gardens, who go up against another Kingston-based team, Harbour View, are also in danger.
Even if both manage to win today, they still have the respective hurdles of Constant Spring and Waterhouse to face.
Constant Spring and Waterhouse are in with a chance of making the semi-finals and will not be doing their opponents any favours. Waterhouse who face Tivoli Gardens today at Ferdie Neita Park are on 40 points, two more than Constant Spring who play away to Hazard today.
While the Tivoli Gardens/Waterhouse is expected to be full of action, the match of the day will be between Olympic Gardens, who are fighting for their Premiership lives, and Harbour View who are home and dry.
Both teams have met three times this season with Olympic faring better on each occasion.
In their first encounter, Olympic Gardens were whipped 4-0. They lost more respectably in the second leg 1-0 and drew 0-0 the last time they met. Today might be their day.
"The mood in the camp is one of nervousness because no one wants to go back to the A League," said Bryan Rose, manager of Olympic Gardens yesterday.
"We have two matches remaining and it is a matter of survival. We must win with both matches," he said.
Their task will not be an easy one as two of their better players, Layton Barrett and Patrick Edmondson, have not trained with the team for the past month. National representative Gregory Messam is still out following knee surgery and will watch from the sidelines.
"It boils down to the remaining players having to put out extra effort. It was their on Sunday last even though we should have lost. The guys who gave their all.
"We hope that the effort will be even greater tomorrow against the defending champions so we can have three points," Rose concluded.
From the Harbour View camp, this game represents a getting back on track following the dropping of two points against Waterhouse on Sunday.
