Bangor 4 v 3 Civil Service
With Bangor safe in mid-table and Civil Service all but relegated Saturday's game was never likely to be a classic but it serve up plenty of incident, it not quality hockey.
Bangor were twice pegged back before seemingly having the game in the back and actually ended up holding on for a 4-3 win at Ballykillare.
In fact, Bangor's win sealed Civil Service's relegation back to Senior One after several years in the top flight but, as ever, the Knock side went down fighting.
Bangor dominated possession in the early stages but apart from a string of early penalty corners, which were unusually ineffective, the Service goalkeeper was not tested. And on the break the pacy visitors' frontline was stretching Bangor's defence.
When David McClune finally gave Bangor the lead midway through the half a goal avalanche was expected but Service had clearly not read the script. After McClune had taken an accurate pass from Mark Lappin and rounded the goalkeeper with aplomb to score Civil Service hit back through the best player on the pitch William Robinson. He got the goal his all-round performance deserved when he fired home on his reverse stick from the left of the circle.
But the scores were not level for long with Lappin striking at the other end almost immediately. Simon Hunter ran onto a Dowie Holley pass on the left wing and his cross found Lappin lurking at the back post and he shrugged off his man to fire into the Service goal.
Bangor deservedly were read the riot act at half-time and the side raised themselves in the second period to dominate proceedings. But they never quite opened up Civil Service in the way they have in other games this season, with the Belfast side fighting for everything as they approached the relegation trap door. A little too much in one case as they lost a player to the sin-bin for hitting Holley after the ball had gone.
McClune grabbed his second goal and his side's third eight minutes after the re-start when he got on the end of a Michael Harte pass at a penalty corner.
Bangor's dominance failed to produce enough chances but they did score once more when a perfectly executed counter-attack, involving Holley and McClune, left Hunter with a simple back post tap-in to make it 4-2.
As the game seemed to be coasting to a conclusion Service grabbed a late goal through John McKinlay, on his debut, that left Bangor sweating a little in the closing stages, but they held on for a hard earned, if not on aesthetics, performance.
In the closing minutes Gareth Morton returned to the fray for the first time this season and despite his first touch producing an almost comical fall, the team were happy to see the ace poacher back in the squad.
The first eleven have no game this weekend and finish their league programme the following Saturday with a tough away fixture to Cookstown.