David Healy believes the "future is bright" at Linfield for history-maker Braiden Graham

Aged 15 years and 137 days, Graham beat the previous record held by Charlie Allen, who was 19 days older when he came on as a substitute in the Blues’ 1-1 draw against Coleraine in April 2019 before moving onto Leeds United.

Graham replaced Chris McKee in the 77th minute of Linfield’s 5-0 Danske Bank Premiership win over Dungannon Swifts at Stangmore Park as they kept the pressure on league leaders Larne.

He has starred for the youth sides at Windsor Park and Healy hopes both Graham and Rhys Annett, who also made his senior debut following a January move from Dundela, will thrive in blue for years to come.

"When Rhys came on he showed glimpses of the ability we seen when he was at Dundela and I patted him on the back when he went on and said this is hopefully the first of a lot of games he will play for this football club,” Healy told the club’s media channel.

“He was desperate to come here and that was key because there were probably a lot of other people that would have took him.

"I've seen Braiden play since he was 11 or 12 and you used to always see this small kid score four or five every other weekend for the 12s, 13s and 14s and always hoped he would continue to develop and that's credit to him. He's learning, developing, sprouting up a bit and has good confidence in his own ability.

"If anyone was asked to describe Braiden and what does he do - his work ethic is high, he scores goals and hopefully he has a hell of a future. We won't put pressure on him because he's learning and developing but the future is bright for both Rhys and Braiden."

Linfield are now unbeaten in six matches, which includes their BetMcLean Cup final triumph over Coleraine earlier this month while they’ve scored 12 in their last two league games having defeated Newry City 7-0 in the previous outing.

They’ve won the Gibson Cup for the past four consecutive seasons and Healy knows they can’t afford to drop points if they’re to make it five.

"When you play before your rivals it's important we picked up maximum points and we did that,” he added. “I thought the first-half was a good game with two teams trying to play in the right way and the pitch certainly helps that.

"Whether we deserved to go 2-0 up into half-time is up to other people's opinions but I thought we were good in the first-half. We adapted the shape at half-time and went to the back four and we came out with a good lead and capitalised on a few quickfire opportunities to basically kill the game very early on.

"It's important we do our job and that's our focus. The players are aware of the situation that we can't afford to drop any points.

"Dungannon have been in decent form, are into the semi-final of the Irish Cup and beat Cliftonville last week so we knew the difficulties and challenges coming down here but credit to our players. They were professional, organised and disciplined.