On a crisp and sunny afternoon at Pollock Park, Bangor fielded a largely unchanged side that had drawn against Cooke the previous weekend, with the notable exceptions being the return of Jamie Thallon in the forwards and Connor Scollan in the backs, which also allowed some of the other regular players the opportunity to rest their minor injuries. Lurgan were still smarting from their narrow defeat against Randalstown and would have been hoping to pick up some much needed home points.

Bangor got the game underway and from the outset looked really fired up, and hungry for the ball. In an almost faultless opening 10 minutes, where the passing was slick and running incisive, Bangor raced into a 12 point lead with tries from Jamie Thallon, converted by Gareth Millar, and then Danny Young. However, whether it was a case of Lurgan’s resurgence or Bangor’s complacence, for most of the remainder of the first half, the attacking pressure was coming from the home side, and only the combination of good defence and faltering attacks kept the scoreboard from changing.

Having started so brightly, there was obvious disappointment from the Bangor supporters that their side hadn’t managed to move further ahead. But, just as the first half was drawing to a close, a Bangor turn-over was driven forward by Conor Lusty before passing to his fellow centre Ally McIvor. A strong run brought play into the Lurgan half – the first for quite some time – before a simple pass inside to Jack Andreassen saw the front row forward charge through to score just to the right of Lurgan’s posts. Millar added the conversion giving Bangor a more healthy 0-19 lead just as the referee blew for half time.

As Lurgan got the second half started, Bangor could look forward to having both the wind and sun at their backs, so the expectation was that they would step on from their first half performance and put the game beyond Lurgan’s reach. Early signs were good, when just 3 minutes after the restart, Connor Scollan finished off a good backline move with Bangor’s bonus point try in the right hand corner. Although the conversion was missed, Bangor had now stretched their lead to 0-24.

However, in almost identical fashion to the first half, Lurgan took control for the following 30 minutes, forcing Bangor to soak up sustained periods of pressure inside their own twenty two. The only difference was that this time they were able to turn that possession into points. A penalty was successfully converted to open their account with 3 points. This was followed by 2 tries, of which one was converted, that dramatically cut Bangor’s lead to 15-24, with less than 10 minutes left to play.

Finally realising their less comfortable position, Bangor raised their tempo and pressed forward once again. As the game entered its final few minutes, Gareth Millar spotted a gap opening up in the Lurgan defence and drifted through to touch down under the posts for a pressure-relieving try which he also converted. Although this was a blow to the Lurgan players who had worked so hard to get back into contention, they picked themselves up and pushed forward again in the slim hope of salvaging a losing bonus point. Although they had brought play back into Bangor’s twenty two, a loose pass was intercepted by Mike Weir who set off on the counter-attack. Although he made good progress towards the half way line, he was in danger of being caught by the back-tracking Lurgan players. Sensing the danger, he passed the ball to Patrick Dobie who was on the inside and in space. Despite there being over half the pitch still to cover, Dobie showed a clean pair of heels to the retreating Lurgan defence, and finished his run with a flourish as he dived over the line and finally put the game to bed. Millar’s successful conversion to bring the score to 15-38 was met with the referee’s whistle for full time, and Bangor could celebrate another valuable bonus point victory.

This was very much a ‘book-ended’ performance, with Bangor putting on an excellent display in the opening and closing 10 minutes of the game. However, it is obvious that more concentration and effort is needed to maintain that level of performance through the full 80 minutes. For the time being, though, Bangor can enjoy their move up the league table to second place, but with Dromore and league leaders Enniskillen having played two less games due to their progress in the All Ireland Junior Cup, there is no guarantee that this will remain the case when parity of fixtures is resumed.