IT has not been the best of seasons for either club but Heworth and York Acorn will be wanting to finish on a high on Saturday.

The arch-rivals clash in the Arriva Trains Conference division two with both looking to lay claim to the 'best-team-in-York' tag.

Acorn, who have one more game left to play, will finish the higher of the two, albeit still in the bottom half of the table, but Heworth, who are guaranteed second-bottom and the need to seek re-election, won the reverse clash between the foes at Thanet Road and are seeking a double.

Acorn player-coach Dave Kay said: "Both teams will finish in the lower regions but with any local derby there's a lot of local pride at stake.

"Heworth came out on top last time and deservedly so as we didn't perform on the day but we will be looking to reverse that this week."

Acorn had an excellent win over fourth-placed Ince Rosebridge in their last game a fortnight ago and Kay was hoping to keep a similar line-up, though he was to leave it late to check on a few injury doubts.

Heworth spokesman Ken Sykes agreed it was an important clash. "It's a big game and we're geared up for it," he said. "We're expecting a pretty decent crowd as there's always a lot of interest in these fixtures.

"The other game against Acorn will have no bearing whatsoever on what happens on Saturday, and they won their last game so will be feeling reasonably confident."

Both sides began the campaign with high hopes, with the Villagers in particular suffering a terrible reverse in fortunes having just missed out on promotion when finishing third last year.

Sykes added: "We had a good win against Widnes St Maries two weeks ago but suffered a hefty loss to Castleford Panthers last week and we will have to play better otherwise we might be facing another defeat."

The match could be the last in charge for player-coach Brendan Carlyle, with his assistant, Alfie Hill, and Selby Warriors' Kev Fellows taking the reins next year. But Heworth were hoping the former York and Doncaster half-back would not hang up his boots.

Sykes added: "We're hoping he will play next year. He has done really well to come back so well from his horrendous Achilles injury (at the start of the season) and I think there's still life left in him but we will see."

Heworth, meanwhile, are to submit their re-election bid by the end of this week and are likely to find out their fate for definite at the Conference's annual general meeting which will be held in the next two months.

Sykes said: "We're going through the submission process at the moment. We're not taking anything for granted but we feel that given our facilities and structure we should be okay."

He added: "Everybody will be quite happy when this season is over and hopefully we can galvanise ourselves and come back stronger next season."

Heworth's biggest problem this season has been a shortage of open age players, which has seen the 'A'-team struggle for numbers. The situation improved slightly after the new year, but their season is now over.

Updated: 11:00 Thursday, April 08, 2004