By Rory McKee
AFTER picking up just a second win of the season last Saturday to move off the bottom of the table, North Down Hockey Club Men’s 1st XI manager Robin Mitchell hopes that his side can now kick on as they fight to preserve their Premier League status.To say it has been a challenging first half of the campaign for the Comber outfit would be putting it mildly. Last weekend’s 6-4 triumph over PSNI halted a run of six straight league defeats for North Down as they swapped places with the Newforge club at the foot of the league standings. North shipped some 25 goals during that losing run and are in the thick of a survival battle with eight games left to play, but three valuable points against their fellow strugglers just might provide the spark for a much-desired upturn in form.“It was an important win in the sense that they were the team above us in the table,” said Mitchell, who has given more than 60 years of service to the club he first became involved with as a teenager.“I think we have been unlucky this season, we have played some good hockey but have also made some silly mistakes. If we can cut out those mistakes, then we might be okay.”North Down have a host of experienced players among their 1st XI ranks including Gareth McKeown, whose four goals on Saturday took his overall tally for the Comber club to 150. Among those more seasoned campaigners are also new recruits and up-and-coming talent, as Mitchell explains: “We have benefitted from the fact that CIYMS Hockey Club folded and that has helped to strenghten us personnel wise. We also have a couple of school boys with us who are still learning.“There’s a lot of hard work needed between now and the end of the season,” he added. “It’s [the Premier League] a very even league. Cookstown probably stand out, but otherwise any team can beat any team on their day.”It used to be that a simple two up, two down system determined which teams dropped out of and moved into Ulster Hockey’s top flight each season. But changes in recent years mean that relegation and promotion is now dependant on matters in the All-Ireland League, known for sponsorship reasons as the EYHL. That uncertainty is something North Down have recent experience of, as last season they were made to sweat on how the promotion/relegation picture unfolded in the EYHL before eventually learning that they would need to beat the Ulster Intermediate League runners-up, Mossley, in a playoff to secure a Premier League place for 2024/25 – all of that despite finishing in a theoretically safe eighth at the end of the year.That playoff, which couldn’t be staged until after the EHYL season drew to a close, meant North Down were thrown into more than six weeks of limbo before embarking on what was ultimately their most important clash of the season.
