A late collapse costs Dungannon

A DISAPPOINTING collapse in the final five minutes of their home game with Skerries saw Dungannon suffer defeat when victory looked as close to guaranteed as it can in the All-Ireland Leagues.

As the game clicked into the 75th minute, Dungannon were leading by 11 points, 21-10, but skipper James McMahon then received a yellow card and when down to 14 men, the Stevenson Park men’s wheels came off as Skerries sensed blood.

The visitors ran in a try by David Goodman, converted by Ronan Mulcahy just two minutes after McMahon’s sin-binning and two minutes after that they had victory sealed when Mikey Sherlock dotted down for the necessary five points.

“Our indiscretions in the first half and our inaccuracies cost us,” observed Dungannon head coach, Jonny Gillespie.

“We don’t have anyone to blame but ourselves because the clock doesn’t end at 75 minutes.

“We should have been out of sight but our inaccuracies in their half means there were two to three tries left out there and if you leave the door open you’re going to pay the price.

“You knew it was happening live but the players didn’t respond and didn’t execute. It’s a tough lesson to take.”

Ryan Abernethy had put Dungannon into a second minute lead with the first try of the game, converted by Ben McCaughey before Skerries edged in front through a Luke Mitchell score, converted by Mulcahy who also knocked over a 36th minute penalty.

The Stevenson Park side responded after the break with McCaughey converting a James Gamble try before Peter Cashel seemingly secured the win with their third touchdown of the clash, again converted by McCaughey, with half an hour remaining.

Unfortunately, 25 minutes later disaster struck and they ended up losing from a winning position. And while disappointed by the conclusion, Gillespie is taking a philosophical look at the result, keen to turn his attentions to two local derbies against Rainey and Clogher Valley in the coming weeks.

“We’ve had a reasonably good block, which we would have taken at the start but it will fester for a few days. We’ll have to suck it up and get on with it,” he said.

“The next two fixtures will be two different challenges – one will be direct, who we know very, very well, while the other will be fast and a wee bit more expansive, so we’ll have to prepare a wee bit differently for both I would imagine.

“Once we wake up tomorrow morning and the sun rises again, we’ll look forward to the challenges of those two games.”