CENTURIONS' play-off bid will go right down to the wire following their victory over South London Storm.

The Cotlandswick club go into the final round of matches tomorrow, with the chance to join Hemel Stags in post-season action still up for grabs.

But it is still a tall order. Only if Hemel beat South Norfolk Saints by 40 points and Centurions overcome Ipswich Rhinos by a similar margin, will they make it through as one of the top two in the Eastern Division.

At least the Centurions are in winning form. Saturday's success was, although far from their most fluent performance of the summer, their second win since successive defeats against Hemel and South Norfolk.

South London Storm are not one of the division's strongest outfits, but were blown away nonetheless, as soon as the game started.

The Centurions calmly played out their first set of six tackles, South London knocked on and from the scrum, the returning Raoul Simons sent centre Ross Mitchell over for the opening score.

Simons was the architect of his side's next try, teeing up Mark Dando for a simple touchdown under the posts, which was converted by Mark Dando for a 10- lead.

The home team did managed to claw a try back through Peter Maitland, but with their play-off chances on the line, the St Albans side soon went straight back on the offensive.

Second row Roger Davis added a third try before scrum-half John Longden, who was the star of the show with a hat-trick of tries, snatched his first of the afternoon by weaving past four would-be tacklers.

Longden's conversion of his own score meant that with just 25 minutes on the clock, the Centurions had built up a soothing 20-4 lead.

They did not have it all their own way however and suddenly their play-off chances shrunk somewhat as tries for South London's Maitland and Tom Craswell brought the difference back to ten. The response from Marcus Tobin's men could not have been timed any better. Right on the verge of half-time a quick tap penalty saw the ball worked out wide for Steve Callaghan to dart in at the corner to reaffirm his side's superiority going into the second half.

It proved to be the end of South London as the second half belonged entirely to Centurions from the moment leading tackler Simons shrugged off his defensive duties to open the scoring.

Longden then added his second of the game after some quick thinking had caught South London unawares, and Mitchell's conversion sealed the win with little more than ten minutes to play.

But for good measure, replacement winger Ben Moralee added to the tally and Davis added his second before Longden rounded off a convincing romp by taking his personal tally to three tries and the Centurions' total to the half-century mark.

t Centurions travel to Ipswich Rhinos tomorrow (Saturday) for the final game of the Eastern Division campaign.