Stephen Baxter was relieved to see his Crusaders side withstand a late charge by Bangor as they progressed to the Irish Cup quarter-finals on Friday night.
The cup holders had enough chances to have killed the game off by half-time, but had only Philip Lowry's goal to show for their efforts.
The leading goal scorer bagged another one early in the second half to seemingly killed off the Premier Intermediate League side's resistance, but Ben Arthurs had other ideas when he reduced the arrears with 24 minutes to go.
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It set up a grandstand finish but the visitors withstood the pressure to seal their place in the last-eight.
Baxter was pleased to see his side progress but he was also delighted to see Ben Kennedy make a return to first team action again after six months out through injury.
Kennedy played the final 12 minutes at Clandeboye Park, but Baxter says they will not rush his return.
"It is pleasing to see him back," he told CruesTV.
"We were giving him a little bit of a tonic tonight bringing him back into the first team.
"He is nowhere near being match-ready, he's three or four weeks away from that.
"But it was good to get him in around the first team again and give him a lift.
"He played 70 minutes for the Reserves on Monday night.
"He is really tired, his body is really rusty, he's not even ready for a game with the reserves again this Monday night!
"When you're out that length of time with no football it's hard.
"Ben has to build all that up again on the training pitch.
"It was great though that he was able to give us a 10 or 15 minute cameo, it will lift him and let him see he's not that far away."
As for the game Baxter was happy to be in the hat for the next round but felt his side should have had the game killed off.
"We had enough chances in the first half to put the game to bed," he said.
"We let Bangor back into the game, they knocked the long ball down our throat and we didn't deal with the high ball.
"They got a goal and that gave them a lifeline and put us under a bit more pressure.
"In a cup tie you can throw everything at it and throw caution to the wind.
"We huffed and puffed and we had to hang on a bit, but in cup games away from home we got the job done and we're in the hat for the next round."
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