‘Clunky’ Dungannon win again

DUNGANNON strengthened their second place in the Energia All-Ireland League 2B table on Saturday with a third win in a row, which leaves them eight points ahead of third placed Clogher Valley.

Tries from James Girvan and Mervyn Brown, along with three penalties and two conversions from Ben McCaughey were enough to seal the win for Jonny Gillespie’s men, but with Kian Regan dotting down and Oisin Fagan kicking eight points, it was never really comfortable for Dungannon.

“It was a wee bit clunky, but I think that came on the back of last week’s game [at Malone] and in the conditions, but we scored just before half-time, a really nice try, well-worked and that took a bit of the pressure off,” Gillespie observed.

“But I’d never say we felt comfortable. But we did enough, I think. We’re nowhere near our best but we did enough.”

The fact his side did just enough to get the win means Gillespie, despite seeing his side comfortably within the promotion play-off positions, wants more from his team in terms of performance.

“We want to keep getting better,” he explained. “There’s no point playing six out of 10 all season and then coming unstuck in the play-offs. We’ve got to know what we’re capable of doing so we need to rattle on quickly and hit our straps and see how we’re getting better.

“I do believe in the team, I believe they can do it, but it’s about getting that consistency throughout the group.

“We have scored a ton of points this season, we’ve won more games than we’ve won ever really in any calendar season. We’re doing the right things, we fell we’re getting close but I still think we’re reliant on one or two players to make something happen and then everyone else goes ‘we’ll if they can do it we can do it’ whereas we need that collective effort of going ‘right, for 80 minutes here we’re going to drive this’ and hold ourselves to a higher standard. We’re playing OK, we’re not playing poorly, but we need to execute a little more consistently.”

And if they are to earn anything from a tough trip to Galway this coming weekend he knows they will need to step it up a gear from the displays against Malone and Bohemians.

This coming Saturday Dungannon travel to Galwegians who lost their first seven games, earning a losing bonus point in each before finding their feet with four wins in a row to sit fifth, just two points behind fourth placed UL Bohemians.

“We’re away to Galwegians, which will be really, really tough. We’ve won three on the bounce, so we have to go down there with confidence, body language and a little bit of expectation to handle the pressure of getting the result but we need to start games better and be ruthless with our discipline,” he added.

“Galwegians are very capable and they played very well against us without the release from Connacht, so we’ll be highly cautious of them, very respectful of them because based on the rugby I’ve seen from them, they are better than a couple of the teams around them and if we’re not on it, if we don’t play well, we’ll come away with nothing. It will take a massive effort to come away with four points, so we’ll need to start the game well and go from there.”