Glentoran manager Declan Devine hailed “real asset” Cammy Palmer after the midfield ace scored in a second consecutive Premiership match during their 2-0 victory over Dungannon Swifts.

Having found the net against Glenavon last time out, former Rangers youngster Palmer added to Pat Hoban’s strike at Stangmore Park to seal maximum points for the Glens.

The 25-year-old isn’t known for his goalscoring prowess – before Glentoran’s last two league matches, Palmer had netted just once for the East Belfast outfit in the Premiership across 66 outings.

Palmer has been a trusted member of Devine’s squad, starting in 23 of their 24 league fixtures so far this season, and the Glens chief has been impressed by his all-round impact.

placeholder image — Glentoran manager Declan Devine. (Photo by Desmond Loughery/Pacemaker Press)

“It’s certainly pleasing, but I think Cammy’s overall play has been outstanding all season,” Devine told the club’s media channel. “He has been excellent and a real leader for us.

"A fit Cammy Palmer is a real asset. I’m really delighted for him because I know how hard he works every day.

"I’m also delighted for James Douglas, who has stepped into right-back for the last two games. It’s the first time he has played there and it looks like he has played there all his life.

"It’s difficult to single out anybody, I thought it was a real squad performance. We’d people like Liam Burt not even coming onto the pitch, we had real high quality players able to come on and make an impact.

"This window has been a real positive for us. I’m sorry to see some of the players go, but I think the players we’ve brought in have really enhanced the squad.”

Glentoran had lost both of their previous Premiership matches against Dungannon this term, suffering defeats home and away.

Saturday’s result ensures they’ve maintained pressure on Coleraine in the race for automatic European football and Devine was happy to get one over on the Swifts.

"I challenged the players, we’ve had two negative results against a good Dungannon side in recent times,” he added. “The two times we had those results we were down to 10-men.

"The one at The Oval was really frustrating because I don’t think Dungannon had a shot on target in that game.

"This is a hard place to come and a lot of teams find it difficult. It had been two weeks since we had a league game so it was important that we responded with a win.

"It was refreshing to get a game, play on a nice surface and move the ball with a bit of purpose.

"We started the game a bit sluggish, gave up a couple of opportunities which I wasn’t too happy about, but then we should real good courage and quality to score the goal and have other chances.

"We missed a couple of half-chances and were thinking ‘right, we need to get that second goal’.

"The one thing I’ll say is when you have a squad as strong as we did today, real strong bench with real quality, the backing of the fans was magnificent again. There were a lot of strong performances and I’m delighted with the result.”