Football – England – Skrill Premier Semi Final Play-Off 1st Leg
Thursday 1st May 2014 – Kickoff: 1945hrs
Wednesday night brings us the second of the semi final play-offs in the Conference as hosts Grimsby Town take on Gateshead at Blundell Park.
Grimsby finished in 4th place just one place and one point behind tonight’s opponents with an overall home record of 11-7-5 40/26 although they suffered a couple of hiccups in the run-in towards the end of the season with defeats against Dartford 0-1 away and 0-1 at home to Halifax Town, the latter contributing to Grimsby finishing fourth as opposed to third I’d daresay.
Grimsby’s home form has been pretty steady for the bulk of the Conference campaign although in recent weeks they’d been defeated on home turf twice in their last nine against not only top half opposition but against teams in the top six – Luton Town 1-2 and the Halifax result.
The Mariners’ likely goal threats may come from Hannah (13 goals), John-Lewis and Rodman (7 goals apiece), but it’s their defence which might come under scrutiny over these two legs as they’ve kept just four clean sheets at home all season, and none against top six opposition.
Visitors Gateshead will go into tonight’s important clash at Blundell Park on the back of a twelve match unbeaten run which includes eight wins, a run that was instrumental in Gateshead attaining not only a play-off place but they finished in a creditable 3rd place just three points behind Cambridge United.
Their away form was also very strong in the back half of the season and they lost just once in their last nine away matches with an overall away record of 10-6-7 30/26. The Heed Army know they can get a result at Blundell Park as well as they’d previously held The Mariners to a 2-2 draw back in mid-January, and confidence will be high following their last day of the season 2-0 home win over Cambridge United.
Gateshead’s attacking threats are likely to come from the likes of Marwood (10 goals, 10 assists), Maddison (9 goals) along with Chandler and Larkin who have each bagged 8 goals apiece during the regular season.
This looks like being a very tight encounter tonight, and I’m not sure we’ll be any the wiser come the end of the first 90 minutes in which the draw looks a likely result. But with the value on the visitors who are in solid shape at the moment, I’ll back them with the round ball at a decent price. Could be a 1-1 draw or Gateshead might just nick it 1-0.
Pick: Gateshead AH0 @ 2.35 Pinnacle
