Bonus point win helps Dungannon close in on leaders

DUNGANNON closed the gap on Energia All-Ireland League 2B leaders Wanderers at the weekend after earning a bonus point 31-14 victory over Malone at Stevenson Park.

With Wanderers losing at Skerries, the triumph has boosted Dungannon’s hopes of catching the Dubliners during the second half of the campaign.

On Saturday, a Billy Allen yellow card on the half hour mark led to Ross Todd scoring for Malone, while Matty Smyth converted but Dungannon bounced back three minutes later when Ben McCaughey scored for the hosts to leave it 7-5 at the interval.

After the restart, Todd was sent to the sin bin and Dungannon took advantage with Kyle Gormley scoring and McCaughey converting as Jonny Gillespie’s men took the lead for the first time.

And with former Ulster back, Peter Nelson pulling the strings in midfield, the home side took control of proceedings but not before Malone struck again with Smyth converting an Adam McNamee try.

Just before the hour, however, McCaughey grabbed his second score of the game and converted it before completing his try-scoring hat-trick on 65 minutes as Dungannon secured their bonus point and led 24-14.

And with 10 minutes to go, Toby Gribben dotted down for McCaughey to convert as Dungannon sealed a 31-14 win.

“It took a while to get it going,” Gillespie observed. “Malone had a lot of ball in the first half and we became very set piece orientated and we struggled to get any flow and rhythm to it.

“It was 7-5 to them at half-time but I wouldn’t say we were overly panicked, we just tweaked a couple of things and made sure we didn’t try to force it and in fairness to the boys they took their tries quite well and were disciplined enough – there’s always room to improve.

“We were a bit sloppy at times individually but the team was trying to do the right thing at the right time and Peter [Nelson] put us in the right areas of the pitch at the right time in the second half and ultimately that probably won us the game.”

Having picked up two bonus points in defeat at UL Bohemians last week and five against Malone, Gillespie is satisfied with their return from those fixtures but with his squad still fairly decimated by injuries, he is confident that can continue to improve in the new year.

“We targeted eight points from the two games and that’s no disrespect to the opposition, that’s just what we thought we’d need if we want to meet our goals, so seven is good,” he acknowledged.

“That loss [at UL Bohemians] still hurts us and will sting us. We do let teams start games better than we would like but we are tweaking things and working on things but we are very happy with how the first half of the season has gone.

“We’ve had quite a few injuries. We haven’t broadcast it but we have had to accelerate the development of some young players a little earlier than we would have liked. We have been without the likes of Stephen Todd for the guts of a month, Adam Milligan for getting on six weeks, Mervyn Brown a month, but the guys who have taken over have done very well and hopefully that will stand to us in the longer term.”