Tim Hill’s hat-trick kept UCD in division one by the skin of their teeth, or rather the width of a post, as Henry Butler cracked the inside of the post for Trinity with three minutes of normal time remaining.

Hill scrambled in with the last play of extra-time to take a cracking promotion/relegation playoff, shattering Trinity’s dreams of return to the top tier in front of a large and raucous crowd at Grange Road.

The Belfielders appeared to have the quality to take the game with a bit to spare toward the end of the first half when they quickly cancelled out Steven Roberts early opener with Hill – one of the game’s standout performers along with Stuart Malcolm for DU– twice making the vital intervention.

Conor Motyer claimed the first assist, sweeping to a waiting Hill on the flick spot; Ben Dobson’s neat reverse set Hill free for the second, cutting in from the right and flicking over Kristian Fitzgerald and dribbling over the line despite a few flailing sticks.

Half-time came too quickly for them, though, as it broke up their flow and they ran into a spirited second half performance from their colours rivals drawing hard tackles from both sides culminating in Shane O'Donnell being sin binned for a hard tackle on Craig Moore. Trinity took advantage of the extra man by scoring with Roger Clarke sweeping home Stephen Roberts centre after having a shout for a goal a minute earlier chalked off.

Fitzgerald pulled off a couple of excellent saves, notably from Shane Nolan’s excellent, behind the back deflection and Luke Chadwick’s rising reverse.

But it was Trinity closer to snatching a normal time winner as Butler rounded on the ball and clattered the upright while Moore crashed the rebound wide.

A Trinity corner chance was charged down, leading to extra-time and again Tim Hill went close on two occasions, once flicking right across the face of goal and having another taken off the line by a combination of Ian Gorman and Freddie Hill.

It looked set for a repeat of the playoff in 2008 - when UCD won on strokes after a 4-4 draw against Suttonians - but Hill burst in from the right-wing again.

He beat Fitzgerald and the covering Malcolm could only get a desperate stick to the ball but could not prevent it from slipping in.

A brief consultation between the umpires ensued before the goal was officially confirmed, preceding the final whistle by a couple of seconds, sparking jubilant celebrations from the sky-blues.

UCD 3 (Tim Hill 3) Dublin University 2 (Steven Roberts, Roger Clarke), after extra-time