Dergview 3 Queens University 1 (Dergview win 4-1 on aggregate)
After taking a narrow lead back to their home ground, Darragh Park, Dergview finished off the job on Tuesday night to retain their Bluefin Sport Championship status for at least another season while Queens will remain in the Premier Intermediate League (PIL). A statistic that may interest some is that despite their lowly league position Dergview have only lost two games out of their last twelve and picked up 20 points from their last ten league games since Peter Allen took over the managerial position.
The Castlederg men were out of the traps early as Ryan Campbell put them ahead on the night, 2-0 ahead on aggregate, in the second minute but Ryan McCready brought Queens back into the tie early in the second half.
Campbell scored his second goal of the night though in the 67th minute with a deflected effort to restore Dergview’s two-goal cushion overall and not long after Andrew Sproule made sure of things with a goal of his own when he converted a Philip Wallace cross.
That’s the Northern Ireland Football League (NIFL) all but wrapped up for another season, what we are unsure of is who will get promoted to the PIL in place of relegated Donegal Celtic. Mid-Ulster league winners Dollingstown will play-off over two legs against the winners of the Ballymena League, Glebe or Bangor for the right to play in the PIL next season. Bangor play their last league game on Saturday with Glebe wrapping up their league campaign on Tuesday so all will become clear then.
In the meantime, I will return at some stage in the next couple of weeks to take a look back at the Championship and PIL seasons.
