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Tight race in Northern Region Division One

Sport
AN exciting finish to the World Navi Northern Region Division One League season is on the cards with Flame Lily, Gunners and Mushowani all in contention for the top honours.

AN exciting finish to the World Navi Northern Region Division One League season is on the cards with Flame Lily, Gunners and Mushowani all in contention for the top honours, and just a few weeks of football left.

SPORTS REPORTER

With just five games left to play in the league, the three teams are all capable of walking away as champions – whose reward is promotion into the top flight league – with Flame Lily trying to fend off the challenge of the other two teams.

Things got heated up at the weekend when all the three leading sides collected maximum points in their respective matches.

Interestingly, they all won with identical 1-0 scorelines.

Lily scored in stoppage time at their Chikurubi base to beat Blue Swallows and maintain their slender lead at the top of the table.

Some few kilometres away at Lafarge, Gunners needed a first half penalty converted by Moses Demera to maintain pressure on the top team while Mushowani also got maximum points against Chegutu Pirates to keep their hopes of sneaking on the title.

So after 29 rounds of matches, Lily are on 61 points, one ahead of Gunners while dark horse Mushowani are three points adrift of the log leader – making things a lot more interesting for the big finish to the title race.

Flame Lily coach Nesbert Saruchera, after his team’s latest win, summed up what has been the situation so far in the league and what needs to be done going forward.

“The league is competitive and it needs character especially at this stage of the season. We are still fighting and the race is still on. We will not relax until we get there,” he said after the scrappy, but hugely important win over Blue Swallows.

But looking at the three teams’ run in in the last five matches, this one is Flame Lily’s to lose. And of course, they can easily lose it.

The prisons services side’s next match is a difficult away trip to an unpredictable DStv Rangers and neither of the remaining matches after that is an obvious game.

Home to sixth placed Commando is awkward, then an away trip to 12th placed Lake Harvest followed by a home match against Starbill sounds good given the two teams’ horrible slump in recent times.

Flame Lily will conclude the season with a tricky fixture away at Black Mambas.

A lot of things have to go right for Gunners to win the title, but its not impossible. They need Lily to do them a favour by dropping points, but before they even look at that, they need to improve on their performance themselves. Their latest win was the first in five matches.

They have lost form at the wrong time and hopefully they will improve from hereon. The fact that they are still to face Bindura United, on the last day of the season, a side that still have an outside chance of winning the title, makes Chando Kupisa’s situation even more complicated.

For Mushowani, what they need to do to win the championship is tough but still conceivable. Their main problem lies in the fact that they cannot decide their fate.

They just have to win all their remaining matches and pray for the best from its competitors.

In a season that could see the winner decided by a goal difference margin, the final lap for the title race beckons and has all the ingredients of an exciting finish.

Top three remaining five matches Flame Lily — DStv Rangers (away), Commando (home), Lake Harvest (away), Starbill (home), Black Mambas (away). Gunners — Starbill (away), Black Mambas (home), DC Academy (away), Ngezi Platinum (home), Bindura (away). Mushowani — Blue Swallows (away), DStv Rangers (home), Commando (away), Lake Harvest (home), Starbill (away).