4.50pm. April 27.

CONOR Hourihane’s Saturday ended with him clutching the Plymouth Argyle Young Player of the Season trophy, but it was the not the reward for his hard work that he wanted.

The man who was made skipper halfway through another tumultuous season at Home Park has helped to revive flagging Argyle fortunes, and he thought that after leading Argyle into the Theatre of Greens for the final time this season that he would be able to have more reason to celebrate.

Instead of clinching our status as a Football League club, a 1-0 defeat at home to Rotherham United means that next weekend’s trip to Rochdale still has everything riding on it.

“We’re gutted – simple as that,” said Conor. “We should be up and we should be safe at this stage. We threw it away.

“There was nothing in the game. I thought it was going to be a stalemate. It looked that way for the whole game. One lapse in concentration cost us big time.

“I can’t believe it, I honestly can’t. It’s such an anti-climax to the whole situation. We thought we’d be celebrating now. But it’s down to the last game now, so we’re looking to the heavens to save us.”

Permutations are aplenty but, in simple and realistic terms, Argyle need a point to guarantee survival. A combination of Argyle losing, Barnet winning and Wimbledon winning, while Dagenham & Redbridge draw with York would be curtains for the Pilgrims.

Safety looked like it would be assured for a while on Saturday afternoon, but Wimbledon recovered from 2-0 down to draw 2-2 at Lleague 2 champions Gillingham.

Now the Green Army will mobilise one last time, in Greater Manchester – surely in great numbers – to spur on John Sheridan’s men.

Conor said: “I don’t know what to say, honestly. Nine times out of ten, Gillingham win3-0 or 4-0. But Wimbledon have got a few goals back and it goes down to the death.

“We have to move on as quickly as possible. We’ll back in Monday, heads down, then we’ll get up to Rochdale and get the result that we need.

“We shouldn’t be in this position. We’ve been on a good run of form but the results never seem to go our way.

“Someone’s going to go down on 50 points. I can’t believe it. Fifty points usually would be 15th or 16th, but for some reason you’re going to be 23rd now. But hopefully it won’t be us.

“We will be hurting, but we’ll come out on the right side.

“It’ll be tough week. We just have to keep focused.

“We have a good record recently away at good teams. We’re still confident. Even if we were safe we’d be going there to win, so circumstances don’t change. There’s just that more added pressure.

“We need to get as many people up there as we can to give us that little boost.

“If you’re 50-50, just get yourself up there, be the 12fth man and I’m sure we’ll be celebrating come 4.50pm next Saturday.”