Dungannon do derby double over Clogher Valley

DUNGANNON survived a second half Clogher Valley surge to complete the Energia All-Ireland League 2B double over their Tyrone rivals on Saturday when second took on third.

Jonny Gillespie’s men charged out of the blocks, engineering a first half 21-7 advantage thanks to tries from Ryan Abernethy, James McMahon and Adam Milligan, all of which were converted by Ben McCaughey, while Clogher’s points came from Taine Haire’s try and David Maxwell’s extras.

But much like they did against league leaders Wanderers the week before when Dungannon led 24-0, they were unable to build upon or hold that lead during the second half.

While the previous week’s encounter ended with a narrow 31-28 victory to close the gap on Wanderers, Saturday’s clash was just as tight as Clogher roared into life to leave it 18-21 at the final whistle as the home side dominated territory and the scoring with Maxwell knocking over two penalties before Callum Smyton dotted down for an unconverted try. It could have been a different outcome altogether, though, with Clogher stopped short on a number of occasions, while the home side also felt they could have benefited from a more experienced match official on the day.

While pleased to have seen his side hold on to win both top of the table clashes in recent weeks, Gillespie admits that things will need to change sooner rather than later if his side are to continue their impressive run of recent form.

“It’s a mirage [their form] because it can disappear overnight! We don’t celebrate too much, we just put it in the box and move on,” he acknowledged.

“In many respects [the derby clash] was more challenging than last week with the energy of the occasion and the crowd, which we did a good enough job of managing for 40 or 50 minutes and then everything we said we wanted to we didn’t do in the second half and we invited their enthusiastic support back into it, which made it very difficult.

“We were 21-8 up and then we didn’t really fire a shot after that, so we need to go back and look at that as a coaching group in terms of getting our messaging better at half-time because that’s two weeks in a row [they have been pegged back] and if we don’t learn from it we will get punished eventually. We have to do better.

“We are respectful of the opposition, we know they are going to have purple patches in the games, but for me, as leaders on the pitch we probably have to think better to our framework and what we’re good at and do it, rather than chase the occasions.

“The game started opening up and we felt we had to do the same, rather than grab it by the scruff of the neck, compose ourselves and do what we’re good at. We probably chased the occasion, so we’ll probably have to look at that but we’re happy to go into the break with eight or nine more points [after their last two games] on the board. That’s important.”

While Clogher were disappointed not to complete their comeback against Dungannon in what was the first ever AIL meeting between the sides at The Cran, they will take plenty of positives from their performance, particularly in the second half ahead of this coming weekend’s re-arranged fixture with Rainey, again in Fivemiletown, followed by a trip to UL Bohemians before they get a two week break ahead of their final three fixtures against Galwegians, Wanderers and Malone.

“Overall, the second half performance was very good,” observed Valley number eight, Callum Smyton. “And if we had another five minutes we probably would have won the game.

“Our pack took over and we bullied them up front, we kicked well for territory and they probably should have had a yellow card or two which would have helped momentum, but the ref didn’t give them.

“But there’s loads of positives we can take from the game and now we need to take them into Rainey next week and hopefully get the result there because we definitely owe them one [having lost at Hattrick Park earlier in the season].”

Teams

Clogher Valley – Jamie Allen, Rodney Phair, Charles Johnston, Joel Busby, Eugene McKenna, David Stinson, Aaron Dunwoody, Callum Smyton, Matthew Bothwell, David Maxwell, Taine Haire, Luke Russell, Paul Armstrong (cpt), Ewan Haire, Karl Bothwell. Replacements: Matthew Wilson, Kyle Cobane, Neil Henderson, Michael Treanor, Jake Woods.

Dungannon – James Gamble, Ryan Abernethy, Sean O’Hagan, Callum Johns, Cameron Steenson, David Leyburn, Adam Milligan, James McMahon (cpt), Toby Gribben, Peter Nelson, Mervyn Brown, Kyle Gormley, James Girvan, Ben McCaughey, Andrew McGregor. Replacements: Adam Edgar, Jacob Clarke, Ben Connelly, Matthew Maguire, Alex Johnston.