It has been a difficult season for City of Derry, culminating in their imminent relegation from the Championship 1 league. Having said that, there was likely to be little room for sentiment from Bangor as they have been making a late push for a top four finish.

Following a minute's silence in respect of the recent passing of Bangor and Ireland international player Billy McCombe, Bangor got the game underway, with their supporters hoping for another high-tempo start. However, things started badly with an opening kick that didn’t go the regulation 10 metres. This mistake was repeated shortly afterwards when an attacking penalty didn’t make touch, allowing Derry to clear the danger. Eventually, after 15 minutes of play, Ryan Young executed an excellent 50/22 kick which gave Bangor an attacking lineout inside the Derry twenty two. Having secured the ball, Bangor went through several attacking drives until Blair Morgan found the gap in the Derry defence that allowed him to drift through for the opening try of the game, which Rhys Larmour then converted.

Having broken the deadlock, the hope was that Bangor would press on and add to their points tally. Unfortunately, Bangor’s early lethargy was evident again just 7 minutes later when their defence looked completely out of position, allowing a surprised Derry player to jog through and score under Bangor’s posts. With their simple conversion, the scores were now level at 7-7.

Thankfully for Bangor, this jolted them into action and, from the subsequent restart, they won back possession before seeing Adam Lowry score a typically nippy scrum-half try which caught the Derry defence off-guard. Larmour added the extras to double Bangor’s lead to 7-14. This seemed to relieve some of Bangor’s earlier tensions, and shortly afterwards a flowing backline move which started in the Bangor half, was finished off by Connor Scollan. To Derry’s credit, they worked hard to reduce the deficit and were rewarded with an unconverted try in the dying moments of the first half which saw the sides turn around at half time with Bangor holding a narrow 12-21 lead.

The second half proved to be a more one-sided affair, with Bangor picking off their opponents with growing ease. First it was Lowry who ran in from 40 metres for Bangor’s bonus point try after just 3 minutes. Patrick Dobie added a well-taken try in the corner, following quickly by Ethan McGrogan who finished off a move that seemed to involve all the backs. Connor Scollan picked up his second try of the game with a move that he started inside his own half, then finished after good support play from his team-mates. Finally, the forwards got back in the scoring act when Thomas Boyd cut through a demoralised Derry defence to bring Bangor’s score to 12-52, with just 5 minutes left to play. In the closing stages of the game, Derry gave their supporters something to cheer when a deft kick through Bangor’s defence was successfully chased down for a consolation try in the corner.

Bangor certainly confirmed the pre-match predictions, but it was unsettling to see their slow and error-prone start. However, once again they have shown that they can rack up plenty of scores and this win sets up an interesting encounter at Ballymoney, who are just one point ahead in the league standings, next weekend. Although unable to break into the top four league positions, which would guarantee a place in next season’s All Ireland Junior Cup, Bangor will be hoping to reverse their poor performance against Ballymoney when they met in their opening match of the season.

Meanwhile, the 2nds continued their run of good league wins with a 7-52 bonus point win. The game got off to a frantic start, with Bangor scoring in the opening minute, only to have their lead cancelled out within the next couple of minutes as Derry came straight back. Bangor then had to weather an immediate period of pressure before cutting loose with several unanswered tries from Frankie Shivers, Corey Alexander, Felix Burrows, Jake Burns and Cain croft. This result puts the 2nds on top of the Provincial Premier 2 league with just one game left to play against Omagh 3rds in four weeks’ time. Just before that, they face Dungannon 2nds in the final of the Crawford Plate. This is likely to be a tough encounter, especially as it is to be played at Dungannon’s ground. However, if Bangor can maintain their composure and momentum, there’s no reason why they shouldn’t bring some very welcome silverware back to Upritchard Park.