'Humbled' fear put to bed as Rodney McAree has nothing but pride after Dungannon Swifts loss to 'best in the league'

​Joel Cooper’s second-half strike proved decisive at Stangmore Park as Linfield opened up an 11-point gap over the rest of the Sports Direct Premiership field.

James Knowles hit the post off a free-kick as the hosts went in search of an equaliser, with goalkeeper Declan Dunne suffering a late red card.

However, the Swifts ended the night in the same position they started – sitting second in the Sports Direct Premiership in contrast to the status and financial strength traditionally associated with Dungannon.

For McAree, both pride in the performance and regret at missed moments made for another mark of progress by his players against outside expectation.

"Our target before the start of the season was to be competitive in every game and tonight we've been competitive,” said McAree. "I thought in the first half we did play up until a point then we didn't ask enough questions or show enough quality in the final half.

"We spoke at half-time about trying to get our full-backs involved higher up the pitch and trying to get more balls in the box and ask more questions.

"Ultimately I thought we did better in the second half than the first but we lose through a scrappy enough goal.

"Joel Cooper's a wonderful player and has the capabilities of rolling you...but we got rolled too easy, we don't get close enough to the shot on the edge of the box and it trundles into the bottom corner of the net.

"It's a soft goal, it's a hard goal to take whenever you lose the game 1-0.

"We responded well, we asked a few questions and we hit the post.

"John McGovern has a header saved by David Walsh, anywhere else it's probably in the back of the net.

"So there's huge positives we can take out of it.

"We put good ball into the box across the near post, we just didn't get anyone across the keeper.

"We got into good areas, especially in the second half, when we could've forced something."

McAree is full of admiration for the hard yards behind Linfield’s high standing under David Healy.

"I think that's the biggest compliment or bit of positivity...that we're actually going in after 20 games where it is second v first,” he said. “Linfield's a very good team, I think the best in the league.

"They're physically the fittest team and they get bodies back, I don't think anybody will finish above them.

"There's still a wee bit of doubt sometimes creeps into the back of your head that you could get humbled here tonight...but we certainly didn't get humbled.

"We're very proud of all the players, we showed quality...all across the pitch we put in good performances.

"As long as we're competitive we'll give ourselves an opportunity to get points and we're hugely disappointed we didn't get anything from the game.”