By 
A FRUSTRATING five minute spell in the second half of their Energia All-Ireland League 2A clash at fellow promotion chasers, Shannon, ultimately cost Dungannon on Saturday.
Just before the hour mark, Jonny Gillespie’s men had engineered a narrow 19-18 lead, but almost immediately they lost Callum Johns to a yellow card and then five minutes later Kyle Gormley followed him into the sin-bin. With a two man advantage, Shannon were able to strike, with an unconverted try ultimately proving the difference on a day when Dungannon deserved more for their performance.
“The second half didn’t go the way we wanted it to,” Gillespie observed. “We did a lot of really good things and in some ways it was a significant improvement in performance over the last couple of weeks against a very good side.
“Listen, they have 1A calibre in there. They came down from 1B, so these guys know what they’re about, so we’re really pleased with 80 per cent of what we did. We just lost a few or didn’t execute a few opportunities in the second half and that cost us.
“But we’ve nothing to fear of anyone in this league and not many teams come away with anything from Shannon, so to get a losing bonus is good and with three games to go we’re still in the fight [for second place and a home promotion play-off semi-final].”
Battled
Cillian O’Connor kicked Shannon into a sixth minute lead, but Dungannon battled back with Jacob Clarke dotting down and Ben McCaughey adding the extras before the home side regained the lead before the half hour mark with an O’Connor penalty and an unconverted Harry Long score.
Dungannon again responded brightly and they were level by the break when James Girvan touched down and McCaughey again kicked the conversion, but immediately after the restart, Shannon forged back in front when O’Connor converted a Jamie Conway score.
The see-saw nature of the clash continued and just before the hour mark Mervyn Brown edged Dungannon into a one point advantage but then disaster struck with the two yellow cards before Shannon grabbed the win through scrumhalf, Neil Cronin’s score.
