Unlike last Thursday when Robin Hood were beaten by a late Dandy Town goal at Goose Gosling Field, Kyle Lightbourne slept much better on Monday night after his team’s 3-2 win over North Village eased their relegation worries.

The three points proved huge as the win lifted Hood over Village in the standings and made them all but safe from relegation with two games remaining. Teenage midfielder Liam Evans scored twice, including the winner five minutes from time.

“Last Thursday when we let in that goal with five minutes to go, I was tossing and turning wondering ‘how did we do that’, so I know how North Village must be feeling,” the Hood coach said.

“But that’s sports, you have to take the rough with the smooth.

“It wasn’t the greatest performance by my team but it was the result that was required last night. I said to my guys, it’s not over yet, we still need points.”

Like the other coaches, Lightbourne has been paying close attention to the standings and figures his team need another two points to be safe.

“We’re nearly there,” Lightbourne said. “We didn’t play that well, I thought we played a lot better against Dandy Town and felt we should have gotten something out of that game.

“The boys were determined last night not to lose and that was the key. A victory has put the pressure on the teams below us, for sure.”

After this weekend’s break for international friendlies against Grenada, the battles for the league title and survival will resume on March 14 when Hood play a Hamilton Parish side that have virtually lost their bid for a first league title. After that Hood travel to Wellington Oval to meet St George’s in their final match.

“The good thing is we play before everybody else and if we get anything out of that [Parish] game it puts more pressure on the teams below us,” Lightbourne said.

“If we get a point that would put us three points ahead of Rangers, five ahead of St George’s and six ahead of Flanagan’s [before their games]. And if we win we would go level with Parish, which shows you how crazy the league has been this season.

“The two bottom teams play one another and if that is a draw then we’re pretty much safe.”

Village play league leaders Somerset Trojans at home on March 15 before taking on neighbours Devonshire Cougars at Devonshire Rec on April 5. Cougars, on 23 points, are virtually safe as second-from-bottom St George’s can only catch them on goal difference.

St George’s, two points from safety, will have to make home advantage count as they close out their season with two matches at Wellington Oval against Flanagan’s Onions and then Robin Hood. Onions, with a final game to come against league champions Dandy Town, will be relegated if they don’t win against St George’s as their goal difference (minus-11) is the worst in the division.

Southampton Rangers, seemingly down and out earlier in the season, have possibly the toughest final two matches of the bottom teams, away to Dandy Town and Somerset, two teams with title aspirations.

Town were in the bottom three along with Rangers and Onions early in the season, but even when they trailed the leaders by eight points back in December, coach Jomar Wilkinson was still insisting Dandy Town were not out of the running for the league.

That has proven to be the case with Town now just a point out of first place and peaking at the right time with five wins and a draw in their seven games in the second half of the season.

“I think Dandy Town are the benchmark team, even though they did not perform early in the season,” Lightbourne said.

“All our games against Dandy Town, we really gave them good games. Up at the National Stadium [Friendship final] it was poor from us in the first half but we came back.

“I said to the guys against Dandy Town that Antwan isn’t the only person who has to score, that someone else has to take the initiative and score goals as well.

“They took it in and Liam came up big with two goals last night and Jaylon [Bather] had a captain’s performance.”