It’s now crunch time in the LIME/St Catherine FA Major League with the first leg of a two-way semi-final tie beginning today at the Spanish Town Prison Oval.

Title-chasing favourites Frazsiers Whip face Christian Pen in the feature at 5:00 pm after DB Basovak square-off with Rodwood in the early kick-off at 3:00 pm.

The second leg will be played on April 19 and 21 at the same venue, with the winners advancing to the April 29 final, also at the premier football ground in the old capital.

Today is the start of a new journey and all the hard work done in the preliminary round by the quartet to get to this stage will count for nothing when the referee blows the whistle.

Undoubtedly Frazsiers Whip are the bookmakers favourite having dominated the league throughout with only one defeat from 20 matches. If there’s one weakness in the Frazsiers team one could argue that they are not clinical on the big days. For example, they lost the midseason final against Rodwood 3-5 before losing 0-1 to premiership side Portmore United in the Happy Sutherland KO.

Christian Pen could also be considered somewhat of a bogey team for Frazsiers Whip, who are yet to beat the Portmore-based club. On both occasions when these two teams met in the preliminary round the games ended in stalemates; first 0-0 at Frazsiers Oval in December and then 2-2 at Christian Pen in their last meeting on March 13.

After a poor start to the campaign, Christian Pen have managed to turn around their fortunes and have been very good in the last half of the preliminaries, claiming 23 points from a possible 30.

When on form they have proven to be difficult to beat, as all the top-three sides above them can attest to. But how well can they cope under pressure and beat Frazsiers Whip remains to be seen.

Rodwood took second spot four points better than DB Basovak, a team they defeated 2-0 in the final round. But that last game may not be a good measuring stick in assessing both sides, since the result would not have changed their standing either way.

When they met for the first time this season on January 14 the game ended 1-1 and quite frankly this encounter is likely to be very close. But Rodwood hold a slight advantage in this one. After all, their consistency is only bettered by Frazsiers Whip.