Bangor boss Lee Feeney admits the overriding emotion after Saturday's semi-final Irish Cup exit to Dungannon Swifts is “regret” – but insists full focus must now turn to securing Premiership promotion.

The Seasiders had already dispatched top-flight opposition in Glentoran ahead of a Seaview clash with high-flying Swifts but fell behind in the first half as Kyle Owens could only direct a goalbound Andrew Mitchell chip into his own net before Dean Curry’s emphatic header doubled Dungannon’s advantage.

Bangor had periods of sustained pressure with multiple set-piece opportunities giving them a potential route back into the contest, but the County Down outfit were unable to take them and it left Feeney with a feeling of what could have been.

"The quality and intelligence (is what was missing),” he said. "I mentioned I wasn’t happy with how we were squeezing play, the back-line was too deep and I said after the game if we had pushed up that bit more we could have suffocated them and they wouldn’t have got out as easily.

placeholder image — Bangor's Scott McArthur in Irish Cup semi-final action against Dungannon Swifts midfielder James Knowles. (Photo by Inpho/Stephen Hamilton)

"We gave them opportunities, so our quality, intelligence and I think a bit of luck because there were ricochets in the box...if we had got the second goal of the game with 20 minutes to go we would have went on to win it, that’s my feeling.

"I felt they were a bit nervy and with the crowd behind us we would have got our tails up and adrenaline would have taken us through it.

"We would have believed in ourselves a bit more if we had scored and they would have started asking themselves questions. The mentality would have changed.

"I think the word is regret. We had a chance there.

"We felt at half-time when we went out that we had a chance to win this game and get into the final because of the conditions and the way we handled them in the first half.

"I thought we did alright outside of the goal, which was poor, but I thought we would have been better in the second half, squeezed them and had a higher line, but we were fractions off.

"We put them under pressure and were in the ascendancy, but then they get the killer second goal. We will regret not doing better tonight.”

Feeney has maintained throughout Bangor’s dream cup run that sealing promotion remained the priority and they’ll now look to turn their eight-point advantage at the summit into silverware success.

Bangor haven’t contested in Northern Ireland’s top-flight since 2009 and even briefly dropped out of the Irish League pyramid eight years ago, but Feeney will take positives from how his side have performed against some of the country’s elite as they look to make it a regular occurrence from next season onwards.

"I hate hearing ‘well done on getting here’ – we earned the right to get here throughout this tournament by beating some good teams,” he added. “I do think we let ourselves down tonight.

"Thankfully we have a game on Tuesday night against Ards so we will pick ourselves up.

"We are wounded animals at the minute so hopefully we can be a better version of ourselves on Tuesday night.”