The game started at a high intensity with Portadown making the early showing against the newly promoted Bangor. Pressure by Portadown assisted by a strong tail wind, made the Bangor defence create an early mistake giving Portadown the first points. The 3 points were added by Chris McVitty.
Portadown took the Bangor kick off and return into the Bangor danger area. But when Portadown moved the ball to Stuart Lamb who drove towards the Bangor line, a strong Bangor defender relieved Lamb of the ball. From this relief Bangor moved the ball wide to the wing. the Bangor wing raced to within metres of Portadown’s line before being brought down. Good support allowed the wing to off load and Bangor went in for their first score which was not converted. This left Bangor 5 points to 3 ahead.
From the kick off Portadown turned over the ball and again laid pressure on Bangor. Bangor turned over the ball but when they tried to put the ball wide it was intercepted by Whitten to touch down.
Portadown missed the conversation to leave the score 8 -5 in Portadown’s favour.
The game possession swung either way for a time without any success for either team. Portadown then capitalized on the pressure they put Bangor on to force the ball over the line from a maul close to the Bangor line. The conversion was taken by Chris McVitty to make the score 15- 5 for Portadown. All was going well for Portadown who were well on top until a ball moved wide allowed an intercept by Bangor centre who ran under the posts for a an unconverted try to make the score 15 to 10.
After half time Portadown pressured the Bangor line and following a number of phases on the line Portadown drew in the Bangor defence. Once the defence were down numbers Portadown worked the ball wide for David Whitten to score on the corner. Chris McVitty converted to make the score 23 – 10 for Portadown. The game looked all but over until another mistake by Portadown allowed Bangor to win the ball deep in their half. The Bangor 10 kick the ball high and long. Portadown wing caught the ball and tried to run out of defence with it. His pass out of the tackle was received by Bangor who ran into the corner . A touch line conversion made the score 23 to 17. By now Bangor confidence was high as they now pressed the Portadown line. This pressure paid off when a Bangor maul drive over to make the score 23 to 22. The touchline conversion gave Bangor the lead for the first time with only 10 minutes left in the game.
This spared Portadown into action and they pushed hard into Bangor territory. This hard worked paid off when Bangor gave away the final penalty shot. Chris McVitty slotted over the penalty in front of the post to give Portadown the close fought win of 26 points to 24.
