‘Hinch take a mile against Dungannon

DUNGANNON’S disappointing start to the new season continued on Saturday when they were thumped 50-3 by Ballynahinch at Ballymacarn Park.

“They were too strong for Queen’s last week and they were too strong for us,” Dungannon head coach Jonny Gillespie acknowledged. “I imagine, they’re too strong for everyone else in Ulster, barring Instonians on a good day. They can do a lot of damage to a lot of teams.

“They have got the best players, they have a lot of them, they are athletic.”

Gillespie’s men were on something akin to a hiding to nothing on the day as they visited Ulster’s only All-Ireland League top flight side with a less than full hand.

And after a bright start, during which Ben McCaughey kicked them into a 3-0 lead on the quarter-hour, the inevitable happened as Hinch eased through the gears to seal a one-sided victory in the end.

“We played well in the first half, they led 17-3 [at the break], which was probably just about fair enough. But the physicality, they look like professional athletes and we don’t and that’s what it comes down to, men against boys.”

After losing 26-5 to Banbridge in their opening fixture and then suffering defeat on Saturday, Dungannon now travel to Queen’s, who have also suffered two heavy defeats in Group A, to round out their campaign ahead of the AIL 2A season, which begins on September 27.

But even then, Gillespie feels it will take time for his side to get up to speed given the number of players missing large chunks of pre-season.

“We’ll give Queen’s a rattle – they are probably in a similar position to us and struggling a little bit,” he observed.

“We had two [players] back today [Saturday] but the problem is they haven’t trained.

“Being realistic, Halloween is probably a fair point for us to start playing our best rugby but we can’t use that as an excuse to not get wins on the board early doors by knuckling down with some hard work.”