‘We’ve Made Winning A Bit Of A Habit’ – Milligan On Dungannon’s Strong Start To New Season

Now in Division 2A, the Tyrone men are determined to push on again, heading to Merrion Road on Saturday afternoon to face Wanderers with two wins already on the board.

A second-place finish last year behind Wanderers was only part of the story. To complete the job, Dungannon had to fight their way through the play-offs, first a bruising Ulster derby against Clogher Valley before a final clash Navan.

They came through both with courage and conviction, sealing their return to Division 2A after so many seasons of near misses and narrow heartbreaks.

Among the players who have strived to get the club into the league’s third tier is club captain Adam Milligan. Originally from Lisburn, he makes the 40-minute commute to Dungannon, a club he joined following his time in Friends’ School in Lisburn.

Now in his eighth season at Stevenson Park, Milligan acknowledges that it has been a long journey, but one that yielded the dream result last season.

“In my previous years at the club, there were times where we were on the wrong side of those results and we maybe didn’t finish games strongly,” he told IrishRugby.ie.

“But once you start to make a habit of it, there’s always that belief that you can come back and you can win games, and I think that’s what we have within the squad.

“We’d kind of been there before in terms of play-offs. We’d got ourselves to a final two seasons before and we maybe weren’t quite ready. The mindset going into the play-offs, it’s promotion or nothing.

“And because of that, and there is a rivalry there with Clogher Valley and not wanting to get beat, especially in an Ulster derby by another team, I think that played a big factor in getting through that game.

“And then once we were through that, it was a pretty emotional day considering how long this club sat in 2B. And we’ve always wanted to be the group of players that get them back up.”

The back row forward added: “A lot of these guys have been at the club even longer than me, much longer than me, and have been through it. So, I don’t think there was a way for us to lose that final. The mindset was we’re going up today.

“We put in a top, top performance and for me, we were big deserved winners last year. I’ve been at the club now about eight years, and ever since I’ve been there, it’s been 2B – it’s all I ever knew.

“I played a lot of games for the seconds, captain with the seconds, and then finally made my way into the firsts. There’s been a lot of seasons where we’ve scrapped to stay in the league and seasons where we’ve pushed for promotion.

“So, it’s been a long journey but I think not to sound clichéd, the stars aligned. Great coaching staff, great group of players, and it just ended with the dream result finally.”

Many might have expected Dungannon to struggle with the step up. The early signs, though, suggest otherwise. While pre-season results in the Ulster Senior Cup did not exactly turn heads, Milligan insists they were never a true reflection of the team’s potential.

“The Ulster Senior Cup, in those groups we were kind of a bit all over the place in terms of injuries and mixing and matching the squad and trying different things,” he admitted.

“If you ask our coaches, and I think if you ask the players, I don’t think the results really fully reflected what we can do. I think that’s maybe why people saw the Banbridge result (a 26-5 defeat) and thought, ‘Oh, they’re in our division, we might struggle’.

“But we knew we had so much more to give than the Banbridge game, than the Ballynahinch game, and even the Queen’s game, even though we won the game (36-12).

“So, we had a good pre-season. Everyone’s kind of really bought into it. We’re just rolling on from the success of last season and just putting results together.

“I don’t think people looked at us, and we maybe didn’t recruit like other teams would and didn’t have big signings coming in or anything like that. People maybe thought that we could struggle, but we knew we had a really good squad last year, a squad that’s made winning a bit of a habit.

“Know how to win games now and we’ve kind of just carried that on into this year. The two teams we’ve played so far (Greystones and Galway Corinthians), we know how good they are.

“They finished in and around that top four last year. Go down to Greystones and start with a win (31-24), and then you’ve got to win your home games, so we really wanted to target that Corinthians game.

“To get that over the line (winning 18-17) in such horrible conditions, it was a nice way to start it. Hoping to make it three from three in this block, but again, another away fixture and there’s no easy away fixtures in this league.”

Next up on the agenda is Wanderers, a team Dungannon know all too well. The Dubliners won the corresponding encounter last season on the way to winning the league title, with Jonny Gillespie’s side in hot pursuit throughout the campaign.

Form goes out the window, admits Milligan, when it comes to playing Wanderers. He expects a tough battle once again, but is looking forward to renewing the rivalry between the teams.

“We know Wanderers really well. They were in 2B, it felt like as long as we were in 2B. And you almost got to know a lot of the guys at Wanderers. It’s a great club.

“We love going down there. It’s a good away day, even for our supporters and stuff, so I’m buzzing to go and play them again. They beat us once last year. We beat them once. It’s always a tight game.

“I don’t think there’s ever more than one score in it with them. We’ve done our research on them. We’ve looked into them. Of course, they’ll have done the same.

“We’re not looking into much about their previous results, because I know they’re a team that’s in a bit of transition. They’ve made signings, and it’s probably just taken them time to maybe click a little bit in the first couple of games.

“But they managed to pick up a great result coming up the road to Banbridge, never easy for anyone. That’s a great result for them last week, and they’ll kick on.

“If we want to see ourselves in that top four battle or even to win the league, these are the games you’ve got to go down and you’ve got to get something from.

“We’re aiming to win it, of course we are. We know how tough it’s going to be. But we know we’ve won down there before. We know how to beat Wanderers, and hopefully we can again this weekend.”

After the emotion of finally getting out of Division 2B last season, Dungannon are striving to continue this push. Life has started off well in the higher tier, stressful yes, but they have come out on the right side of results against both Greystones and Corinthians.

Over the last fortnight, prop James Gamble has twice emerged as their try-scoring hero, having the final say in both games. ‘Gannon have shown a coolness and never-say-die spirit in pressure moments, and a canny knack of producing strong finishes.

Milligan reflected: “There were a lot of faces of relief in the Navan game. I’ve got to mention the coaches, both Jonny Gillespie and Jonny Graham and even Jonny Patton, who has been at the club longer than the other two.

“They put in so much, so many hours for us. The club took a big step in appointing them as coaches with the hope that we could finally push on to promotion.

“It was an emotional season. If you ask Jonny Gillespie, it’s probably taken a few years off his life! Some of the ways we won games last year was, to be honest, it felt like a pure relief. It felt like a weight lifted, that we could finally get over the line.

“We seem to always find ourselves behind. It wouldn’t be a coach’s dream going behind. We led in parts in both games, but I’d say down to our S&C that we brought in this year, that’s been a big part. Our conditioning’s been good, so we do finish games strongly and we know we can.

“If we’re within touching distance, we’re very good at finishing games well. You just have to look at last year. We were camped on our own line against Clogher Valley in the semi-final and we managed to work our way up the pitch to get a penalty to win the game.

“It’s one of the things that we’re good at, finishing strong. I would say it’s down to conditioning, but it’s down to belief too.”

He continued: “You talk to a few people who have played 2A, played 2B as well, from other clubs, and even guys on podcasts listening and stuff, and they seem to think that the gap between 2A and 2B would be one of the tighter gaps.

“We knew, finishing high up in 2B and finishing so many points clear of the rest of the league, even though we were in second, that we were still in a good place for coming into 2A.

“Obviously it’s still a tougher division, there’s no doubt. But then I think we still knew that we were good enough, a good enough squad. We went straight back into focus. I think that’s why we picked up two results early doors.

“It wasn’t like, ‘Let’s live off this promotion and just try and survive’. It was, ‘Let’s push on’. It wasn’t about survival this year or just hanging around in a higher division.

“I think we went straight back into, ‘How can we get better and how can we push on?’. The goal has always been this year to be in and around that play-off spot.”

Keep up to date with all the latest news in our dedicated website hub at www.irishrugby.ie/energiaail and follow #EnergiaAIL on social media channels.