Rodney McAree delighted to give growing Dungannon Swifts supporter base something to cheer about - but feels Premiership top-six spot still 'huge ask'

The Stangmore Park outfit are enjoying a sensational season – they are 15 points better off this time around than 12 months ago and have gone from third-bottom to occupying third, sitting one point behind Cliftonville and eight adrift of leaders Linfield, who they will face on Tuesday.

There’s undoubtedly a feel-good factor in County Tyrone at present with Irish League statistician Marshall Gillespie recently posting figures which shows Dungannon’s home attendances have improved by an average of 111 from last season – this weekend’s opponents Ballymena United have seen an increase of 432 at the Showgrounds, which further displays the value of positive results.

The Swifts haven’t finished in the top-six in 15 years – they came fifth during the 2009/10 campaign and been eighth or below in each of the last six seasons – and while McAree is enjoying every moment, he knows the task ahead with only nine points separating second and ninth.

"The supporters club, Spirit of '49, that was introduced at the start of last season have done a fantastic job in terms of recruiting new members, getting new people to come around the club and jump on board,” he said. "They continue to do that as well so they deserve a huge amount of credit.

“I noticed that attendances have gone up and noticed that our away support has gone up too. When I used to watch Dungannon and would stand on the other side of the pitch, I could count how many fans we had, but thankfully now we're at a stage where there's too many!

"It's great to see and hopefully it continues. It would be fantastic (to finish in the top-six), but I still think it's a huge ask, even with the position we're sitting in at the moment.

"Other clubs maybe understand that they have to up their game and January is going to come upon us very soon and the clubs with a few quid are going to be able to go out and spend and recruit.

"We'll have to be very wise with the money we have to see if we can get any better than what we have. It won't be a case of us going out to sign a load of players, it'll be a case of trying to find one or two if we can."

Dungannon had conceded 40 goals after 19 matches last term, but at the halfway point this time have leaked just 23 – 11 of those came in three defeats to Loughgall, Coleraine and Cliftonville before getting back on track – and McAree has praised the collective defensive effort.

"Even from pre-season we focused on that a bit more,” he added. "Everyone wants to go forward and score goals, but if you're having to score three or four to get a result then it makes it very difficult.

"We had to concede less. We've a three-game spell this season where we conceded 11 of our goals and that was maybe a bit worrying, but fair play to the boys for clawing their way back out of that and got back on the right road.

"I think the season before I came back they'd conceded something like 88 goals so you were never going to be competitive when you concede that amount of goals.

"It's something we still have to work on because we still concede poor goals at times and there's still room for improvement."