The lights came on for extra- time at Anglesea Road for the second round AIB Cup match, but the lights went out on Ballymena’s bid for progress.

Belvedere had to defend stoutly in added time, but went through to the third round thanks to a penalty from scrum-half and captain Ruari Cushion.

Ballymena recovered from conceding two tries in the opening four minutes to claw their way back into the game and dominated most of the first half with good work by their forwards.

Peter Budina scored an excellent try under the posts after a great drive by Ian Caldwell, outhalf Tommy Woods reduced the deficit with a penalty after 29 minutes and Caldwell got his reward for some sterling work when he scored a try near the posts just before the break to leave the visitors 15-12 in front.

But the Braidmen were undermined by a misfiring lineout, losing seven of their own throw-ins.

They had good strong running backs but the Belvedere defence was excellent and too often the ball carrier became isolated.

Belvedere, unbeaten in their three outings in the All Ireland League, pounced on any mistakes made by the visitors and scored against the run of play when winger David Mongan snapped up a dropped ball on halfway to race over for a try.

Ballymena’s replacement prop Nigel Hall was only on the pitch for a minute when he scored a try near the posts which Wood converted after just over an hour’s play.

Holding on to their lead Ballymena lost prop Simon Shawe to the sin bin and Belvedere made their superior numbers count in the pack to drive their giant Maori Leo Auvalu over for a try to level the scores with eight minutes remaining.

Ballymena came close to winning in normal time, and dominated the first period of extra-time but were hurt by dropped passes.

And when Belvedere worked their way into the Ballymena 22 an infringement in the line-out gave Cushion his chance.