By 
DUNGANNON head coach, Jonny Gillespie, believes his side need to change their mental approach to games after enjoying an unbeaten start to life in Energia All-Ireland League 2A.
Having earned promotion through the play-offs last season, the Stevenson Park outfit went into the new campaign with an underdog mentality but after winning their first four games in a row, then digging deep to salvage a draw in their fifth at Cashel last time out, means Gillespie feels his players will have to adapt their approach game on game.
“It’s a balancing act between knowing when you’re becoming slight favourites, which is something we’re maybe not used to as a club,” he observed. “An underdog title is very easy to live up to because expectation is lower, so we’re trying to work through a process of when there’s a little bit of pressure, how good can we be and get results and in fairness to the boys, the outcome is OK, they have salvaged something under pretty sustained pressure. But we have to be comfortable with that expectation on us all the time.
“The loser mentality would be that [after an unbeaten start to the season] we’re halfway to safety and this is what I’m talking about, we have to transition our mindset to acknowledge that, yes, we’re halfway to safety but we’re also halfway to getting potentially a spot to try and go up again and that’s the juggling act we have to perform every week.”
Dungannon’s results thus far have them sitting second in the table but they face leaders, MU Barnhall at Stevenson Park this coming Saturday when Gillespie knows they will need to show the hunger and desire from their first four games in order to continue their unbeaten start to the season.
He felt that was missing from a large period of their last fixture at Cashel where they needed a last minute Alfie Lewis try to salvage a draw against their hosts, who played for 78 minutes with just 14 men after Timothy Townsend’s early red card.
“We decided to not play well!,” he observed.
“I just thought that because we’re a small squad that we have to have a desperation every time we play and I just felt that was missing in the first half.
“We weren’t good for 25 minutes [of the second half], it was literally the last 10 minutes when we managed to get a bit of ball but I have to credit their ability to finish.
“It was a slow pitch, a sticky pitch and it could easily have been smashed into touch and we’d have lost the game, so I have to acknowledge that they did finish it well.”
