Sandy Strang: Premier campaign goes down to the wire

It could hardly be closer. Grange played 16, won 12, 126 points, 78.75 per cent. Watsonians played 16, won 12, 124 points, 77.50%. And just two games to go. Such are the parallels that in Week 14 both teams even contrived to lose simultaneously.

The history of the 11 previous Premier League campaigns since the SNCL's 1999 inception is revealing. On fully seven occasions the victors have won the title by some distance. Just four times has it gone right down to the last-day wire. Grange only just pipped Heriot's by 0.56 per cent in 2000. Clydesdale shaded Ferguslie in 2004, and the Meikleriggs men were again ill-starred in 2007, losing out on the final day to Greenock in the only year the league was decided on raw points alone. Had it been calculated on percentages - as in every year before or since - then the Paisley club would have won! Then last year Aberdeenshire thrillingly edged out Grange in the final week.

Grange have arguably the harder run-in, hosting Aberdeenshire and travelling to Forfarshire, whilst Watsonians face second-bottom West, before undertaking the tricky trip to Dunfermline. History also records that Grange have won the Premiership six times to Watsonians' none. The Myreside men, perhaps crucially now without Tim Weston who has departed early to fulfil his cricket commitments back in New Zealand, do have some seriously talented performers like Ryan Flannigan, Ewan Chalmers, Stuart Chalmers, James Easton, and Paddy Sadler, but only Craig Wright back in his Greenock days has extensive experience at the sharp end of winning Premier campaigns. By contrast the likes of Sanjay Patel, Neil McCallum, Giles Holmes, Stuart Davidson, Simon Smith and Andy Wilson have been here often before at Portgower Place. Such previous experience over the course could well be the key determining factor in a nerve-shredding run-in.