Dungannon give visitors a Mala’hiding’

DUNGANNON’S bright start to the season continued on Saturday as they thumped Malahide 45-14 at Stevenson Park to open their Energia All-Ireland League 2B campaign with a bang.

Having defeated Ballynahinch, Queen’s and Malone in the Ulster Premiership, a confident Dungannon side took to the field against Malahide and while they were slow to get going, once they got into gear, there only looked like being one winner.

The teams exchanged early penalties with Ben McCaughey’s effort for Dungannon proving accurate, while David O’Halloran missed for the visitors.

Andrew McGregor extended the home side’s lead with a try converted by McCaughey, who did likewise on the stroke of half-time after Sean O’Hagan touched down to give Jonny Gillespie’s men a 17-0 lead at the interval.

Malahide started the second half brightly and they reduced the arrears when Sam McCoy crossed the whitewash and Michael Hanley converted.

But that provided only a flicker of hope for the visitors as Dungannon stamped their authority on proceedings from that point on McCaughey scored and converted a try before James McMahon dotted down and Toby Gribben added the extras.

Joe Cronin was then yellow carded for Malahide in the 73rd minute before O’Hagan scored his second try of the game, which Gribben converted.

O’Hagan was then yellow carded three minutes from time and Malahide made numerical parity count with a last minute consolation try through Hanley, again converted by McCoy.

“It was important to get off to a half decent start with the momentum we had from the Ulster Premiership fixtures so I’m pleased to get the five point return,” Dungannon head coach Gillespie acknowledged.

“It was far from our best rugby, though. The first half was clunky and slow. I don’t know if we were nervous or whatever, but eventually it clicked in and we got a few nice scores in the second half.

“I’m relieved and satisfied rather than happy.”

Gillespie will be seeking an improved performance this coming Saturday when Dungannon travel to Sligo, who lost 34-25 at University of Limerick Bohemians at the weekend past.

“As I said, it’s about getting better in each game during this block and we’ll have to get better if we’re going to get a result in Sligo,” he said.

“If we want to do what we say we want to do then we have to go down with an expectation of our performance and if the result comes on the back of that, then great. But we’re not going down to start slowly and stay in the fight, we’re going down to impose ourselves on them.

“We’re definitely not taking anything for granted, apart from the fact we will get a hell of a test.”