Look, we all know the thing about sports where one team is supposed to obliterate another on paper, right? It's like that scene in Rocky where Apollo Creed's team keeps telling him it's just an exhibition, nothing to worry about, and we all know how that turned out. Well, Saturday at Balmoral Stadium isn't quite Rocky versus Apollo—it's more like if Rocky had already taken twelve rounds of punishment before the opening bell even rang.

Cove Rangers sit dead last in League One with two points from nine matches. Two. Points. That's the kind of number that makes you check the table twice because surely there's been some administrative error. Meanwhile, Stenhousemuir roll into town joint-top with Hamilton, riding a form line that reads like a video game cheat code: four wins in their last five, seventeen points already banked, and a goal difference that suggests they've remembered this is actually a sport about scoring. The Warriors hammered Motherwell's kids 4-0 last weekend in the Challenge Cup, making it five wins from five in that competition and earning themselves a seeding. They're the kind of confident right now that has you wondering if they've already mentally cashed the promotion check.

But here's where it gets interesting, and why I'm not writing this off as a formality that'll be wrapped up by halftime. Cove just destroyed Dundee United's B team 5-1 in that same Challenge Cup. Now sure, it's a reserve side, but you don't score five goals by accident. That's not a participation trophy performance—that's Josh Mylchreest grabbing a brace, Mitch Megginson doing what he does, and suddenly a team that's been getting kicked in the teeth all season remembers what the back of the net looks like. It's their first win in any competition since forever, and if you've ever played sports—hell, if you've ever done anything competitive—you know that first breakthrough can be like popping a cork. All that pressure releases at once.

The problem for Cove is that league form doesn't lie, and theirs reads like a horror movie script: 0-2 to East Fife, 0-2 to Kelty Hearts, 1-2 to Alloa. They're averaging less than a goal per game, which in Scottish League One is like showing up to a food fight with a plastic spoon. Stenhousemuir, on the other hand, is pumping in two goals per contest, and they've already beaten Cove once this season—that 1-0 victory back in August that probably felt routine at the time but now looks like it set the tone for both teams' entire campaigns.

The tactical battle here is less chess match and more survival test. Cove needs to figure out how to translate that Challenge Cup confidence into a league setting where they've been getting absolutely worked. Can Megginson build on his recent scoring? Can they somehow bottle whatever magic happened against Dundee United and use it against a team that's actually trying to win something real? Stenhousemuir's approach will be interesting because they're in that dangerous position where they're expected to win, playing away against the league's whipping boys, and those are exactly the kind of games where hubris shows up uninvited to the party.

The betting odds tell you everything: Stenhousemuir at 17/20 to win away, which is basically the market saying "yeah, this should be straightforward". And maybe it will be. Maybe the Warriors stroll in, score early, and spend the second half practicing their promotion celebration poses. But that 5-1 scoreline keeps nagging at me like an itch you can't quite scratch. Teams don't just accidentally score five times, even against kids. There's momentum in football that defies logic, the kind that makes you believe in hot streaks and turning points and all that stuff that sounds like motivational poster nonsense until it actually happens.

Here's what I think goes down: Cove comes out with something to prove for the first time all season, riding that emotional high, and they'll make it competitive for longer than anyone expects. Stenhousemuir has too much quality and too much at stake to drop points here—they're chasing Hamilton for top spot and can't afford to slip. But this won't be the walkover the table suggests it should be. Sometimes the worst team in the league finds its best performance against the best team, not because they're suddenly good, but because they've got nothing left to lose. And brother, when you're sitting on two points from nine games, you literally have nothing left to lose.