Gannon warm up for Clogher clash with win

DUNGANNON warmed up for their promotion play-off semi-final clash with Clogher Valley on Saturday when they concluded their Energia All-Ireland League 2B campaign with a 45-15 victory at already relegated Malahide.

It took Jonny Gillespie’s men some time to find their rhythm in Dublin as the many changes made to the starting XV took time to settle. But once they did, there was only ever going to be one winner.

“We knew it was going to be difficult and it was in the first half. It took our combinations a bit of time to settle down but we got there in the end and it was reasonably convincing across the whole 80 minutes and we’re content with that,” Gillespie acknowledged.

It was Dungannon who took an early lead in Malahide when Lewis McCrabbe’s third minute try was converted by Ben McCaughey, but the home side then burst into life, engineering an eight point lead over the next 10 minutes thanks to tries from Daniel Hayes and David O’Halloran, who also kicked a penalty and one conversion.

But after that the Malahide challenge petered out and by the break Dungannon were just one point behind following Tony Gribben’s try, which McCaughey converted.

Gillespie’s men then took the game by the scruff of the neck in the second half and raced to victory with plenty to spare as Toby Gribben, James Gamble and James Girvan all dotted down, while McCaughey added four conversions and a penalty to seal victory in what was always seen as anything but an end of season dead-rubber by Gilllespie, who is keen for his side to retain focus ahead of a crunch play-off semi-final at Stevenson Park against Clogher on April 19.

“We didn’t frame it as anything other than an important game to win,” he explained.

“We had a couple of key focus areas as usual but we had no major injuries that we could see, so we’re OK, excited to get a week off and then get into it. We’ll probably take [next] week off and not even train, to completely separate the 18 games from the extra one and go from there.

“Clogher at home is massive for us, it’s massive for them and we’ll have to be physically and emotionally ready for it. We won’t be looking past that game either because they are too good, too well coached, too proud, too energetic, so this is a cup final in itself and I won’t even look at what the possible permutations are because it’s Clogher or bust for us.

“It’s going to be a huge game and we’re looking forward to it.”