Dungannon coach Gillespie hopes his side get up to speed

DUNGANNON RFC head coach, Jonny Gillespie admits that the Stevenson Park first XV are a little behind schedule ahead of their opening Ulster Senior Cup fixture at home against Banbridge on Saturday.

But ahead of his fourth campaign in charge, he believes the familiarity that has developed will mean those who have missed chunks of pre-season will get up to speed quickly.

“It’s been OK. We still have a few boys out injured and if I’m honest we have quite high unavailability at the minute.”.

“But that has given some of the younger players the chance to develop a little bit and show what they have got,” he observed after a combined second and third XV side lost 41-12 in a friendly at Enniskillen on August 16th.

He added: “We’re keen to get the boys back as soon as possible, but this time of year it’s difficult for all clubs.

“We probably want to be slightly further on than we are right now, I’m not going to deny that or hide it, but at the same time, once we get everyone back I’d expect progress to be quite quick because it is year four and while there will be things tweaked, the boys will get up to speed very, very quickly.”

Looking ahead to their three Senior Cup group A fixtures, Gillespie is taking a realistic view of things given that their two away games are against teams from divisions above them in the All-Ireland League system – 1A side Ballynahinch and 1B outfit Queen’s – while their only home clash is against their fellow 2A rivals, Banbridge, which he feels will be the real marker for their progress up to this point.

“We’re in a group with Hinch, Queen’s and Banbridge, so we’re realistic,” he said. “We know that on their day Hinch would expect to beat us, Queen’s when fully loaded would expect to beat us and obviously Banbridge, we’re in the same league now, so that is the one that should be closer.

“We go with an open mind, it’s very much a development block and if we top the pool like last year that’s a wee bonus, but we’re realistic.”

The main aim for all at Stevenson Park is for the first XV to be ready for their first match in AIL 2A since their promotion at the end of last season when they take on Greystones at Dr Hickey Park on September 27th.

And while excited about the new challenge of the step up, Gillespie acknowledges that consolidation will most likely be key this term.

“We don’t want to be dragged into anything, ideally, but there are a couple of clubs we won’t have played before or have seen in a while, like Shannon, etc and clubs like that,” he added.

“If you look at the teams who have gone up out of that league [2B], like Galwegians, [Galway] Corinthians, Greystones, who we have played in the past and Wanderers, who we have played in the recent past, that gives us confidence but at the same time we know every game is like a cup final.

“We’re realistic though because there were games last year that we won in the last play and they could just as easily have gone the other way so, yes, we want to stay up but for us it’s about getting comfortable in that surrounding and making sure the players believe they are good enough to be there.

“The fact that we’ve seen some of those clubs in the last 18 months helps that a little bit and the confidence of having achieved promotion definitely does too.”