Admittedly, those defeats could easily have been victories had a couple of tight results gone their way, and you wouldn't imagine Opaki will be hitting the panic button just yet. However, another defeat to a Martinborough team struggling to front up with their best line-up could become terminal. A loss for Opaki would also see them surrender the lead in the overall standings to the winner of the other fixture.
Martinborough, for their part, won't be particularly fazed by the Opaki challenge, despite being without a couple of key players for this match. At home on the grass they have a natural advantage and are relatively consistent from top to bottom, in both the men and women.
If Martinborough have any designs on winning the pre-Christmas competition they will need to take this one, but on paper at least, it will be Opaki that should collect the victory.
In the regional two competition, the highlight of the round sees Masterton 1 play host to Opaki 1, with both teams looking to keep their unbeaten record intact.
Martinborough are proving to be one of the heavyweight teams also and they should have little trouble accounting for Trinity 2 at Rathkeale.
The fixture between Masterton 2 and Gladstone has the potential to be a cliffhanger, while Trinity 1 should bounce back from their loss last week when they play Opaki 3.
Regional 2, Round 4: Opaki (3) beat Masterton (2) 4/2; Opaki (1) beat Opaki (2) 4/2; Masterton (1) beat Gladstone 5/1; Martinborough beat Trinity (1) 6/0 ; Trinity (2) the bye.