Arthurlie are title favourites but Rutherglen Glencairn can follow them to Premier Division
Co-boss Joe Pryce says four clubs are now competing for two promotion slots
Joe Pryce admits Arthurlie are now West of Scotland First Division title favourites, and it's up to Rutherglen Glencairn to follow them to the Premier Division.
Arthurlie went top of the First Division on Wednesday night with a 3-2 win at St Roch's, but with 25 games have played the fewest in the top five, as many as four in hand over second-placed Renfrew, who are now two points behind.
Glencairn are fourth on 49 points from 27 games, five points behind Kilwinning, who have played a game more, six behind Renfrew [with two games in hand] and eight off Arthurlie, going into this week's games.
Arthurlie had a hectic schedule of Kilwinning Rangers on Monday, winning 3-0, beat St Roch on Wednesday, and host Ardrossan Winton Rovers on Saturday, while Glencairn prepare for their visit to 11th-placed Kilbirnie Ladeside.
Glens co-boss Pryce said: 'Arthurlie have loads of games in hand, but that's really tough what they're doing.
'They've been playing Saturday-Wednesday and this week it's Saturday-Monday-Wednesday, and it's really tough to keep that going.
'But they have a big, talented squad, so I think they'll be able to cope with it and will still be everybody's favourites.
'Renfrew have been excellent and have one game left, so they sit idle for three weeks, while we play.
'For the rest of us, it's four teams fighting for two spots, and we've just got to hope that, come the last game, we're still in it and give ourselves a chance.'
Glencairn followed a bruising 1-0 defeat at Vale of Clyde last weekend with 3-2 wins over Thorniewood United on Wednesday and Kirkintilloch Rob Roy on Saturday.
David Leadbetter, Ross Paton and Boris Melingui got their goals in Viewpark on Wednesday, with Melingui bagging a hat-trick at the Hamish B. Allan Stadium on Saturday.
Pryce said: 'That just keeps us in the conversation, really, two really good performances from us, and we managed to edge out both games by the single goal.
'We look forward to going to Kilbirnie. It's a great place to play football, and hopefully we can put on another show.
'We know if we win our last three there's a fair chance we're going to get promoted, but we can't look any further than Kilbirnie on Saturday – that's a really tough game.
'Kilbirnie are a 'Premier' club, and it's going to be really difficult, but we've got to keep going.'
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Daily Mirror
3 days ago
- Daily Mirror
Man Utd star banned for 30 years and six other staggering sports suspensions
A number of the world's leading athletes throughout history have found themselves suspended from their respective sports - including a Manchester United player who was initially banned for life A Manchester United star was once banned for life for match fixing. After plying his trade with Sheffield United and Nottingham Forest, Enoch West made his way to the Red Devils in 1910. A prolific centre-forward, he racked up 72 goals in 166 appearances for United - but his heroic stint was marred with controversy after just five years. That's because in 1915, West and four of his team-mates, as well as three Liverpool players, were banned for life after being convicted of match-fixing. As many of those who received suspensions went off to fight for their country during the First World War, they saw them rescinded upon returning. However, West refused to adhere to the stipulation, and as a result, his ban stayed in place for 30 years before it was eventually lifted in 1945. The longest suspension in Football Association history, West never played professionally ever again, given he was 59 when his ban expired. And he is just one of a number of athletes who have been banned for one reason or another throughout their respective careers... Lou Vincent Lou Vincent was handed a lifetime ban from playing cricket at any level, as well as entering any cricket ground or working in a professional coaching capacity in July 2014, after admitting to match-fixing offences. The New Zealand batter released an open letter which saw him admit to his "dark secret" which "shamed" not only himself, but also his country and the sport. After his suspension commenced, Vincent became a builder in Raglan. However, following a successful appeal in December 2023, his lifetime ban from domestic cricket was lifted, which allowed him to return to play and coach outside of the international game. Lance Armstrong One of the most famous cases of doping in sporting history, Lance Armstrong was handed a lifetime ban by the US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) in 2012. As a result, the American - who won the Tour de France seven years in a row between 1999 and 2005 after recovering from testicular cancer - saw all of his major accomplishments on the roads and tracks of the world scrubbed from history. Ben Johnson While Ben Johnson's rise to superstardom was unprecedented to say the least - breaking the 100-metre and 60-metre world records and winning a gold medal at the 1988 Olympics in Seoul - his downfall was equally as shocking. The Canadian sprinter tested positive for Stanozolol after the Olympics, while he admitted to having used steroids in the past. As a result, Johnson was later banned for two years and stripped of his Olympic medal for doping offences. Despite a brief comeback in 1991, he was once again found guilty of doping just two years later, and was banned for life by World Athletics. Hansie Cronje One of the country's most idolised stars, South African Test Cricket captain Hansie Cronje was handed a lifetime ban from the sport in 2000. Cronje, alongside Herschelle Gibbs, Nicky Boje and Pieter Strydom, was caught up in allegations of match-fixing, with the King Commission banning him from any involvement in cricket for life as a result. Despite challenging his ban the following year, his application was dismissed and he remained forbidden from competing in the sport. Liang Wenbo & Li Hang Liang Wenbo and Li Hang were among the snooker stars caught out in a widespread match-fixing ring in China, which rocked the sport in 2023. While eight others were suspended during the investigation, including 2025 World Snooker Champion Zhao Xintong, Liang and Li were deemed to have fixed matches, to have persuaded and encouraged others to fix matches, and to have bet on matches themselves. As a result, they each received lifetime bans. Zhao, meanwhile, was given a ban of one year and eight months, reduced from two-and-a-half years for early admissions of wrongdoing and his guilty plea. While the 28-year-old never rigged matches himself, he did accept charges of being a party to another player fixing two matches and betting on games himself.
Daily Record
4 days ago
- Daily Record
Rutherglen Glencairn will cope with top flight test, says boss
Joe Pryce's side have been promoted to the West of Scotland Premier Division and he insists they can make an impact Rutherglen Glencairn co-boss Joe Pryce says his side aren't just going to make up the numbers in the West of Scotland Premier Division. The Glens co-boss says players don't want to operate with 10 men behind the ball and can showcase their talents in the top flight. He said: 'It's the Premier Division and we're going in against teams like Johnstone Burgh, who won the Scottish Cup on Sunday, Auchinleck, Cumnock, Pollok – the big hitters just keep coming and first and foremost we've got to make sure we can compete. 'But we want to do more than compete, we want to go in and play in the Premier Division and not just make up the numbers. 'We don't just want to go and have 10 men behind the ball, kicking it the way we're facing, footballers don't want to play that way, they want to showcase their talents. 'We won't build that way, we're going to go in and play the way we want. We know we're going to have to defend, and properly, but we still want to go up and play. We'll be a success, or we'll fail, but we'll do it our way.' Pryce has started looking ahead to next season and is on the verge of signing three defenders, though won't name them at this stage. However, Roan Fitzpatrick, Jack McIlveen and Allan Woodhouse have departed the club. Pryce said: We've spoken to quite a few, but it's that difficult part where players are just leaving clubs, want to see what else is there for them. 'We've been concentrating on our own players, making sure the ones we want to stay are tied up, but we have certainly been active in speaking to players. 'We know our targets, we know what we're looking for, and we're just waiting on players getting back to us. 'We've managed to get two centre-backs tied up at the minute, ready for next season, and we're speaking to another one. 'We lost Roan and Woody out the midfield, who are moving on, and Jack McIlveen has moved on to St Roch's as well. 'We were disappointed to lose those three, because we wanted to take them with us, but they've made their choice, that's up to them and we wish them all the best. They were a big part of what we achieved this year.' Pryce added: 'There are a couple of players that we've still to speak to, in terms of our own group, who won't be here next season, but it's quite slow and difficult. 'The financial landscape of the Premier League is way above First Division, so that's something we're adjusting to. But we are where we are, we're certainly not going to put the club in any trouble, trying to pay wages that we can't afford. 'We see other what clubs have done, and the perilous state they find themselves in, but that won't happen at Glencairn.'
NBC News
03-06-2025
- NBC News
The one rule that decides virtually every NBA champion won't be broken this year
These NBA playoffs have defied conventional wisdom about what works, and what doesn't, in the postseason. Double-digit comebacks? Playing on the road? Inexperience? Neither has been an impediment for the Oklahoma City Thunder and the Indiana Pacers, who have overcome each to make the NBA Finals. The Thunder have the second-youngest roster to have made the Finals in the last 70 years. The Pacers, meanwhile, have thrived on the road and are winning despite historically low odds. Amid all that upheaval, however, one rule remains unchanged: To win an NBA title, a top-four seed is all but a requirement. This season's Finals are the 79th in the league's history. Of the previous 78 championships, 77 were won by top-four seeds. The latest finalists meet that criterion. Oklahoma City finished the regular season with the West's top seed, while Indiana was fourth. Still, decades of precedent suggest that only Oklahoma City meets the NBA's even tougher championship standard, because each of the league's last 29 champions has been top- three seeds. If Indiana wins this season's NBA title, it would become only the second fourth-seeded champion in league history and the first since 1981. The lesson: The NBA regular season is often maligned for its length, but that length has also proved to be an effective predictor of which teams can endure four consecutive best-of-seven playoff rounds. 'If you look at over 82 games, it's a pretty good sample size to tell you who are the best teams,' said a scout for an Eastern Conference team, who asked not to be identified because he wasn't authorized to talk publicly. 'Could it happen one day that a team outside the top four wins? Could this season [seventh-seeded] Golden State have caught lightning in a bottle, like they did a couple years ago? I think it could still happen.' Yet it hasn't in 30 years. The 1995 Houston Rockets are still the only outlier to the top-four rule. They entered the postseason with the West's sixth-best record and left it as champions of the whole league. Owning a seed outside the top four hasn't been a disqualifier for advancing to the Finals. The 1999 New York Knicks and the 2023 Miami Heat got there as eighth seeds, the lowest possible in the NBA's postseason format. Houston was sixth in 1981, and Miami (2020) and Dallas (2024) were both fifth seeds when they made the Finals. Each case proved that it's possible to ride a hot streak all the way to the Finals — but once a team is there, it's likely that a team that has been better for longer will be waiting. None of those series went longer than six games. Teams are well aware of the historical link between regular-season success and the postseason and that flipping the proverbial 'switch' from an aimless regular season to a focused postseason is difficult. In 2023, in the wake of the Los Angeles Clippers' limping out of the playoffs' first round, the team's top basketball executive said the franchise needed to change its entire approach to 'get back to honoring and respecting the regular season.' That executive, Lawrence Frank, even cited the statistic that nearly the past three decades of champions had all been top-three seeds. 'So you have to earn it,' Frank said. 'The regular season matters.' It does in the NBA more than in other sports. The NFL's postseason structure, with one game per round, practically invites variance. The most famous example remains the New York Giants, who in 2007 snuck into the postseason with a 10-6 record, then knocked off the undefeated New England Patriots. Those Giants are just one of seven teams to have won the Super Bowl despite not having won their own divisions. Even in the MLB and NHL playoffs, which each feature seven-game series, there isn't as strong a carryover between the regular season and the postseason as in the NBA. The Los Angeles Kings won the 2012 Stanley Cup as an unexpected champion. Eight wild card teams have won baseball's World Series. When academics from Smith College, Loyola University Chicago and Skidmore College studied how randomness affected postseason success among North American sports in 2017, their paper found that the better team advances in the NBA Finals 80% of the time, compared with about 60% in NHL and MLB series. By that count, Indiana has already done the unexpected by beating higher-seeded teams twice — East No. 1 (Cleveland) and No. 3 (New York) — just to reach the Finals. The Pacers did it, in part, by maintaining a fast pace and upending the long-held truism that games slow down in the postseason. Can they pull off another upset by beating Oklahoma City, which won 68 games in the regular season by one of the highest average margins in NBA history? These playoffs have shown that anything is possible. Almost anything, anyway.
