Ballymena United manager Oran Kearney hopes Daire O’Connor’s Boxing Day double in their 2-0 victory over Coleraine is a sign of things to come as the former Glentoran winger continues building up match sharpness.

O’Connor was a headline summer arrival at The Showgrounds after returning to the Irish League from Scotland but struggled for opportunities under previous manager Jim Ervin, making just three Premiership starts.

The 27-year-old scored his first Sky Blues goal under interim boss Ciaran Caldwell during their BetMcLean Cup quarter-final win over Larne and has now netted three times in Ballymena’s last two league matches.

O’Connor followed up a strike against Carrick Rangers by registering a vital brace to help Kearney secure his first win as Ballymena boss.

placeholder image — Ballymena United manager Oran Kearney. (Photo by Pacemaker)

"A big part of it is probably sharpness,” Kearney told the club’s media channel. “Daire has played a lot for us and we’ve been careful to try and get him up to speed.

"He came off after 60-odd minutes against Portadown, almost made it to 90 last weekend and made the 90 today with a bit of cramp.

“We want to get to a point where he’s as strong in the last 10 minutes as he is in the first 10 minutes. That sometimes only comes with playing matches.

"We’re hoping the longer we go and the more matches he can get behind him that we’ll get to a point where we can see that.”

Having spent 12 years as Coleraine manager and a further season as their sporting director before leaving in May, Kearney got his first taste of standing in the opposite dugout on Boxing Day.

Results at the start of Kearney’s Ballymena reign have got progressively better, following up an opening defeat to Portadown by collecting a point against Carrick and now victory over the Bannsiders.

"It has been good progress,” he added. “I felt the first week, even though we lost, we had made good progress, last week we drew and possibly did enough, so it has been coming.

"We needed a monster of an effort and our performance today outshone the previous two performances...to beat a side like Coleraine it’s going to take that.

"Credit to them all. To a man, I could literally go through all of the 12 or 13 players who performed today and they were all eight or nine out of 10.

"We worked on a few things and knew they were going to dominate the ball at times, knew we would have to suffer a bit at times, but also knew where we could possibly get joy and hurt them.

"It’s one thing having those ideas and putting them across to the players, but it’s up to them to execute that.”