Queen’s have leapfrogged Lurgan to go top of the Premier League table following a 3-0 midweek win over Victorians adding more spice to the students’ clash with the Co Armagh side on Saturday.
Normally a Pegasus-Ballymoney encounter would take centre stage but the game at the Lurgan Junior High School has become equally important.
Any one of those four teams could go on to lift the title with Ballymoney, unusually, the outsiders going into Saturday’s games.
‘Money won the trophy in 2011 when they broke the 13 year monopoly enjoyed by Pegasus until normal service was resumed 13 months ago.
But Lurgan firmly believe they can win the title and add a new face to the roll of honour although coach Gary Blythe knows the pressure will be on tomorrow.
His side lost their unbeaten 2013 record at the weekend when they lost 4-2 to the Ulster Elks so they must at least avoid defeat to stay in the hunt.
“It’s important that the players learn the lessons from that defeat which admittedly was a blip but these things happen,” said Blythe.
“I told the players afterwards that at least we finished the game strongly and to take a positive out of that.
“We didn’t have a good day at the office and while we were a couple of players short that is no excuse for a poor performance.
“But I still believe we can win the title and that is still out objective though it wasn’t at the start of the season when I’d have settled for a top four finish,” he added.
“We still have to play the top teams again starting with the Queen’s game on Saturday and we need to get a result against them after losing to the Elks.”
The Jordanstown side went down 2-0 to Pegasus on Wednesday and the champions have now won three on the bounce since their shock defeat to Lurgan in January.
Neither they nor Ballymoney can afford to lose tomorrow’s showdown although ‘Money have dropped 11 points, three more than Pegasus.
So a draw wouldn’t be the end of the road for the latter especially if the outcome was similar in Lurgan as the title race hots up even more.
In tomorrow’s other top flight games Ards, back from their indoor heroics in Lisbon, will be hoping to avoid a metaphorical hangover when they travel to Portadown while Vics are at home to Armagh.
In the other midweek games, Randalstown lost 2-1 to Armagh while in Senior One, Greenisland went down 6-2 to North Down at the Co Antrim venue.
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