Supporters of Aberdeen and St Mirren can be forgiven for arguing that the Premiership clash between the sides at Pittodrie is of the day's most important game in the Premiership.
At such a crucial stage of the season, slips from either side will be viewed as drastic, the Dons fighting to keep league leaders Celtic in their sights and the Buddies knowing that the loss of any points will severely jeopardise their efforts to avoid having to participate in the end-of-season play-offs - or worse.
Mark Reynolds, who has captained Aberdeen this season in the absence of long-term injury casualty Russell Anderson, believes the cordial nature of the Pittodrie changing-room has been a key component in how well the team has performed as a unit.
It has clearly brought a consistency to his own play and one he hopes will once more catch the eye of Gordon Strachan, the Scotland manager who has featured him in his international squads a number of times, the last of which was for the Euro 2016 qualifier against Germany in Dortmund in September. A full cap, however, has still to follow.
"I have always said that I need to keep playing the way I can for Aberdeen and hopefully that's enough [to be called up].
"I was luckily enough to be involved and when you get there the players involved are good players.
"Thankfully for me, I never felt too far away.
"The worry is you go up there and play with them and think it is a step too far.
"But without wanting to sound arrogant or big-headed, I felt comfortable to play there and next to those guys and not look out of place.
"That is a nice feeling and it makes you feel better about yourself as a player.
"I am happy playing away and getting to see the way Gordon Strachan sets his team up and his philosophy for football has been a great learning experience for me.
"It would be great to get back in but if I don't then I will just keep playing away.
"The way football is, you get injuries and people pulling out.
"Gordon also changes the way he picks his team or squad for certain games.
"He might reckon the qualities I have got are better than someone he has been picking and he might draft me in for a game.
"I am quite happy and it is nice to be involved in a Scotland squad that is bursting with players who want to play as opposed to previous years when boys were getting drafted-in left, right and centre because boys were pulling out injured or weren't interested as there was no campaign to fight for.
"I just want to keep playing away and hopefully get back involved."
A greater sense of camaraderie within Derek McInnes's in-form side, which has produce a run of 12 league games without defeat, has aided their league challenge, Reynolds insisted.
"It is probably a bit different from previous squads," he added.
"We are all similar ages and a lot of the boys have kids growing up of the same age.
"We are all at a similar stage of our lives and doing similar things.
"We all get on very well; we meet up and go for dinner with our partners.
"It is a great changing room and everyone gets on really well."
A hamstring in jury to Jonny Hayes will probably pave the way for a start today for Willo Flood, just returning to action himself after a long lay-off with a hamstring problem.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article