Walsall's Mason Hancock Backs Saddlers for Great Escape Act in League Two Scramble
With five clubs separated by just three points and six games to go, Walsall's returning defender believes the play-off race is wide open despite sitting 11th
If you thought the Premier League title race was tight, spare a thought for the poor souls sweating over League Two's play-off positions. With just six matches remaining, five clubs find themselves crammed into a three-point window chasing that coveted seventh spot – and Walsall defender Mason Hancock reckons his side can gatecrash the party from 11th place.
The Saddlers currently sit two points adrift of Crewe Alexandra, who occupy the final play-off berth, but Hancock's bullish assessment that the race 'is anyone's' doesn't seem quite so fanciful when you consider the mathematical mess above them. It's the sort of congestion that would make the M25 blush.
Hancock's optimism carries extra weight given his recent journey back from the treatment table. The defender endured five months on the sidelines with a knee injury before returning to action in mid-January – timing that couldn't have been better as Walsall hit their stride under head coach Darren Byfield. The Saddlers have gone four matches unbeaten, a run that's kept them firmly in touching distance of the promotion lottery.
The fixture computer hasn't exactly done Walsall any favours in their quest for late-season heroics. Friday brings Gillingham to the Banks's Stadium before a Monday trip to fifth-placed Swindon Town – the sort of quick turnaround that separates the wheat from the chaff in the lower leagues. If ever there was a week to prove Hancock's theory about the race being wide open, this would be it.
Swindon's lofty fifth position makes them the standout opponent in Walsall's immediate future, though in a division where momentum shifts faster than a politician's promise, even that advantage feels fragile. The Robins will be eyeing automatic promotion rather than worrying about teams breathing down their necks, but football has a funny way of humbling the comfortable.
For Hancock and his teammates, the mathematics are beautifully simple: win games and let others worry about the permutations. Whether that translates into play-off football remains to be seen, but in a season where consistency has been as rare as a reasonably priced pie, stranger things have certainly happened.
With Crewe Alexandra, Gillingham, and the rest of the chasing pack all within spitting distance, the next six games promise to deliver the sort of drama that makes the football pyramid's lower rungs so compelling. Hancock's confidence might just prove prophetic – or it could be the famous last words of another nearly season.