Wood go into this game coming off the back of a 4-0 defeat to relegation candidates Rugby Town, where two goals for the hosts in the opening half an hour stunned The Wood, before two more goals in the final ten minutes ensured the hosts would enter the final day outside of the bottom two.

While The Wood have nothing to play for other than personal pride, they could still finish their debut Step 4 season in the top half of the table. They are level on points with Bedworth United and one point behind Sutton Coldfield Town, who currently occupy ninth place. A win for Wood will see them move into the top ten providing at least one of Bedworth or Sutton Coldfield drop points.

AFC Rushden & Diamonds visit The Wood as they face the threat of back-to-back relegations. After dropping out of the Southern Premier Central last season, the Diamonds sat at the foot of the NPL Midlands table for 24 consecutive matches, and only had four points to their name by the turn of the year.

However, a five-game unbeaten run in January, which included three wins, saw them close the gap. Despite some heavy losses to Quorn and Lye Town, the Diamonds continued to put pressure on their opponents, and a 1-0 win at home to Shepshed Dynamo last weekend saw the relegation fight between themselves, Rugby Town and Gresley Rovers go down to the final game.

Despite scoring the fewest league goals this season, Rushden possess a large amount of technical quality, particularly with top-scorer Cairo Taylor, who has found the net seven times so far this season.

Kick off is at 15:00 at The John Sylvester Stadium on Saturday 27th April. If you cannot make the game, ensure to stay up to date with the action on each club’s social media feeds. These are accessible on X/Twitter by searching for either @WalsallWoodFC or @AFCRD. Alternatively, Radio Diamonds will be covering the game from 14:45 tomorrow afternoon. This can be accessed on Twitter by searching for @RadioDiamonds_ or by searching through Mixlr.

Words: Tom Bowen