This Saturday sees the final home game of the regular season fixture list as Livingston come to Palmerston. After last week`s outstanding 3-0 win at Dumbarton this represents an opportunity to clinch our first ever playoff spot and start the ladder to a possible Premiership place. Pretty exciting given that Queens haven`t played at Scottish football`s top level since 1964!
Last weekend`s win leaves us three points clear of Dumbarton and, with a much better goal difference than the Sons, a win over Livingston will to all intents and purposes clinch the playoff spot. In fact any result which matches or betters what Dumbarton do at home to leaders Hamilton Academical will do the job for us. There is clearly a benefit to the manager if we can wrap up our spot with a week to go, particuarly as Derek Lyle and Mark Durnan will miss the final game at Cowdenbeath through suspension and the Fife side might well be chasing a win to stay up.
Livingston are the only club in the division who can go neither up nor down with only two games to go, a fact which illustrates clearly the benefits of the playoffs, and are without influential defender Simon Mensing who has damaged his knee ligaments and will be out for the remainder of the calendar year. They can however call on the services of two former Queens players, Craig Sives and Andrew Barrowman. Cantre back Sives, who returned recently from a spell in Australia to sign a short term deal at Livingston, made 12 appearances for Queens during a three month loan spell from Hearts in late 2008. Andrew Barrowman technically had two separate spells with us during the 2006/07 season, firstly during a three month loan spell from Kilmarnock and then later signing a short term deal with us after being released by Kilmarnock as part of the deal to take Willie Gibson to the Ayrshire side.
Queens welcomed Mark Kerr and Michael Paton back from injury last week at Dumbarton but were still without Bob McHugh and Gavin Reilly also missed out with an injury. No health updates from the training ground this week so we`ll wait to see if anyone fails to make it.
The matches with Livi this season have been close affairs with plenty of goals. Way back in August our second league game saw Gavin Reilly grab a late equaliser in a 3-3 draw and the Lions returned the favour by grabbing a late equaliser of their own in a 2-2 draw at Palmerston in December. Queens finally came out on top in the third meeting at the start of February, Mark Durnan and Derek Lyle grabbing the goals as we came from one down to win 2-1.
Saturday will also see a number of different Supporters Clubs make their annual Player of the Year presentations before the game and a car will be given away in the Deluxe Draw so make sure to get into the ground early. Up the Queens!