HERIOT'S tomorrow start the final push to ensure they spare themselves the agonies of again battling relegation to the wire when receiving NVT Poloc to Goldenacre in the Lloyds TSB Scottish Cricket Premiership.
The Capital outfit currently lie sixth in the ten-team table but, with a dogfight unfolding underneath them, skipper Gavin McIntyre is calling for all the stops to be pulled out to ensure Heriot's keep climbing rather than slip back into trouble.
Heriot's league position may appear comfortable as they sit 19 points above the basement but McIntyre says last weekend brought a reminder of how easily the wheels can come off unless they are vigilant while memories are still fresh of how rain-offs can drag a team down into trouble.
Referring to how Heriot's lost a Scottish Cup quarter-final at Uddingston off the last ball just 24 hours after going down by only 14 runs at champions Greenock, McIntyre said: "What was learned last year when getting too close for comfort to the drop (they finished third bottom) was that it is no use playing good cricket for 90 overs and allowing a weak ten-over spell to undermine all those efforts.
"Having said that, last year was exceptional in that, of our seven washed out matches, several were against teams we would have fancied our chances to beat.
"The big difference nowadays is that we are completing matches and at times, such as when we won (by six wickets) in the first half of the season at Poloc, we have really performed.
"I said to the team after that match that what was achieved at Poloc couldn't be underestimated in terms of confidence building for they are a side capable of troubling anybody.
"The aim now is to prove we can do the same against Poloc at home for a league double."
Having temporarily shed the wicket-keeping pads to shore up the attack early in the season McIntyre is adamant the bowling is now a keyweapon.
Rightly so with the top 20 in the wicket-taking stakes featuring Ali Farooq and pro Cameron Farrell while Jack Ritchie, a teenage overseas amateur, is giving a particularly good return.
"The proof of the pudding lies in the fact that last week we restricted Uddingston to 170 before being edged out and in Jack Ritchie we have hit upon a lad who has grown into his role," he said.
"As well as getting runs (398 so far in the league) he spins the ball left handed and as the likes of Ross Lyons, Keith Sheridan and Imran Adrees have shown if you do that in Scotland you tend to get wickets."
The fact that the last named pair are likely to face Heriot's tomorrow for relegation-threatened Poloc should be taken as a strong hint not to drop the collective Goldenacre guard though the Edinburghers have, in Steve Knox, one of the most experienced campaigners around continuing to go from strength to strength.
An innings of 80 last week took Scotland opener Knox past 500 league runs for the season while his aggregate stands at 3354 – a highly-impressive total considering it has taken him fractionally over 100 matches.
Elsewhere tomorrow, Watsonians will be looking to move off the bottom away to Ayr while Carlton head for Ferguslie keen to avenge an eight-wicket defeat from the previous meeting.
At the top of the table, Grange will also be determined to set the record straight at Uddingston having suffered a rare defeat to in the last meeting.
In Division One, Penicuik head for West Lothian while the Division Two card has road trips for SMRH, RH Corstorphine and Edinburgh away to, respectively, Stoneywood-Dyce, Falkland and Prestwick.
The full article contains 629 words and appears in Edinburgh Evening News newspaper.
