This season has been one to forget for Aberdeen Grammar and has a tinge of inevitability about how it will play out.
They are 12 points adrift at the bottom of the Premiership table with five games to go. The heavy loss against Jed Forest on December 11 was a real chance to claw themselves towards safety, but it proved a bridge too far.
The injury situation at Grammar has been simply too great to overcome. Every week there have been fresh casualties; Pat Mulholland and Matthias Schosser were both forced off inside 15 minutes against Jed and, from then on, it felt like the die was cast.
Relegation is not yet confirmed, but head coach Ali O’Connor knows it will be an uphill task from here to avoid it.
He said: “It seemed to be the writing was on the wall early against Jed – things were lined up to be against us.
“I can’t speak highly enough of the attitude of the players in that game; we had 14 players who were able to keep playing and one who kept playing but was hobbling around the pitch.
“I was talking to a few supporters on the sideline during the game and saying: ‘what can you do?’
“Hopefully we can turn a corner and get a clear run of it after Christmas. Mathematically we’re still in with a chance of avoiding relegation and we’ll not be giving up while it’s still possible.
“Nobody will be giving up even when it’s not possible. When you put on a Grammar shirt, you’re representing a lot of people. That’s what they tell me in the dressing room and that’s a really positive message from the leadership group.
“Players will keep going until the last day of the season and giving their best at every opportunity.”
Grammar are effectively at the stage where they have to win every game they have left. It starts with Musselburgh on January 8, with two of the top three in Currie and Hawick also still to play.
“It will pretty much take that (winning every game),” added O’Connor. “We’ll need some big wins.
“We’ve been in pretty much this exact same position before with four or five games to go and been able to turn it round. It’s not impossible, but it’s an uphill task.
“I was pretty despondent after the Jed game, but the attitude of the lads, their positivity and the way they were interacting with each other, it makes you realise we’re in it for a lot more than league points.
“There’s a far bigger side to rugby, with the community that we’re part of. You have to be philosophical at these times, but we’d like to put a few more points on the board before the end of the season.”
O’Connor felt fortunate there was no game last weekend, as the list of absentees would have seen them struggle to put a team together.
Their only Premiership win this season came at the end of November against Glasgow Hawks. There have been near-misses along the way and games Grammar felt they could and should have taken more from.
It has almost reached the point now where the expectation will be for the Rubislaw side to go down. The pressure may well be off.
O’Connor said: “If things stay as they are, we’ll finish bottom of the league.
“It’s a case of going out there and doing your absolute best, without the expectation that we’ll be favourites in any game.
“It’s one last effort. The only expectation is one we put on ourselves – that we do our best every time we pull on a jersey. That will continue until the end of the season and beyond.”
