Rodney McAree delighted for 'great kid' after ticking off Dungannon Swifts goal milestone

McAleese’s superb first half strike combined with a Kym Nelson own goal means the Swifts have now won three of their last four league matches.

Here’s what McAree had to say after the match:

THOUGHTS ON THAT?

"I thought first half we were very good.

"I thought for 40 minutes we were excellent, I thought the last five minutes in the first half we started to mess about a bit, we tried a rabona off a cross, we tried a nutmeg, we tried a trick over the far side and we started doing things at that stage that we hadn't done.

"So it was important, I know we missed the penalty, but it was important that we got in at half-time with a clean sheet and gave ourselves something to try and hold on to in the second half.

"Second half, it wasn't good enough with the ball, but I thought we were disciplined without it. We worked extremely hard to try and keep that clean sheet.”

BOBBY-JACK MCALEESE – GREAT GOAL?

"He doesn't score enough, he should score more.

"He doesn't believe in himself in that area. He's got great legs, he can get into the box.

"I think he makes forward runs and gets into the box, he can score goals within the 18-yard box, but it was great to see him score as well, so he'll be a happy bunny.

"He's a great kid, he's a good footballer, so that is fantastic for his confidence.”

ANY UPDATE ON HIS INJURY?

"He just rolled his ankle, he's went over on it, so hopefully it'll be alright.”

THOUGHT JUNIOR WAS SUPERB?

"Junior's strong and he's been very good for us since he's come in.

"There's a lot of competition there – Andrew Mitchell, we've Darragh McBrien back from injury, Sam Anderson obviously in from Luton as well who wants to try and get into the team.

"Junior knows he has to try and keep that level of performance up and if he doesn't then he'll find himself slipping out. He's doing extremely well and he's great to have about.

"He's a great guy. One of the reasons why I wanted to bring him in is because I knew his character.

"I knew him from working with him at the Glens. He's a good player but he has a lot of attributes...strength, he gets you higher up the pitch and that's been good for us this past week.”

GREAT TO GET A CLEAN SHEET?

“Yeah, Decky (Dunne) did well, he did everything that he had to do.

"I thought at times we maybe messed about a little bit at the back and played balls that we shouldn't have played and put ourselves under a little bit of pressure, but overall, thankful that we got the clean sheet.”

WHAT HAS BEEN THE DIFFERENCE IN THIS RUN OF FORM?

"It's hard work.

"We looked at ourselves in the early games and us as staff, me personally, I didn't feel that we were working hard enough.

"Last year we got our success through hard work. Every game that we went into, we went into and we worked really, really hard.

"Maybe that comes through a little bit of lack of confidence because we have lost games, maybe then your work dips a little through your confidence, I don't know.

"We spoke before the Cliftonville game about ‘let's go out and give it everything that we have’ in terms of hard work, be disciplined, do the ugly side of the game without the ball, do it better and see where that takes us.

"I believe that if we get hard work out of this group of players, then we can win games.”