Waterford have ninety minutes to claim three points from Longford Town and put some daylight between themselves and Finn Harps.
Last night, Ollie Horgan's side battled to a 2-all draw with St Pat's at Inchicore and helped themselves to a share of the points. The result means that the Blues are now a point behind Harps on the table and the threat from Longford has become all the greater.
The team can mathematically afford to lose the game - with next weekend's fixtures left to decide the final league table, but a win tonight would go a long way to easing the pressure on the players.
Speaking to WLR Sport this week, the manager Marc Bircham says that this game is much the same as the one that had preceded it.
It's a bit like an FA Cup tie when you play a lower league team who have nothing to lose, but they've changed their manager, last home game at home, there is a big potential for banana skin. But we've got to get out of our heads and just focus on doing what we do well.
We'll concentrate on ourselves because when we do concentrate on ourselves, and we do our basics right, we're a very good team.
Last weekend was not the result that Bircham wanted or needed. A 3-1 loss to Shamrock Rovers might have been slightly more predictable, but the manner in which his side attempted to defend the two set-piece goals annoyed the London native.
The negatives were out defending on set pieces, and that's really the only negatives in the game but that makes or breaks the game.
For us to let set pieces in where it's just awful defending by us - it's not clever play by the opposition. I was disappointed in the game before with Derry, letting in 93rd-minute corner. But I was devastated with the lads and how they defended that game [Shamrock Rovers] because it can be a mistake one time but for the game after - two in one game, it shouldn't ever happen to my teams.
This new challenge of the already relegated Longofrd poses its own problems. A team with nothing to lose is a dangerous proposition. It's a final home game at Bishopsgate, and the players who will remain at the club know that this is their last chance to entertain their fans in the top flight. The strings will almost definitely be cut and the team encouraged to go out and attack Waterford. Bircham has cautioned his players to be aware of the danger they face, and not to allow it get the better of them.
I've let them know, we've done a lot of work on setpieces this week. I've drilled it into them we showed videos and analysis over it and now it's all about Longford
I've said to the lads for the last six weeks this is going to be a very tough game because they're in a bit of a false position we've probably helped that because we sort of knock stuffing out of them by the run we went on.
You look at a lot of their games and they've lost a lot of games by one goal here or there so they're better than what their points total makes out.
They've been relegated they want to put on a good show for their home fans before they go down so look it's a bit like a wounded animal you got to be careful
