Rodney McAree praises 'exceptional' Dungannon Swifts star after setting up Premiership victory over Loughgall

The Larne loanee struck after only 13 minutes when his shot from distance made its way past goalkeeper Daniel Devine, who was one of six changes made by Villagers boss Dean Smith, before doubling his and Dungannon’s tally with a fine second-half finish following tremendous work from substitute Ben Gallagher.

Benji Magee’s 94th minute goal ensured it would be a nervy finish for McAree’s men, but they held on to move five points clear of both Ballymena United and Newry City in the race for survival.

Lusty, who also scored in Dungannon’s previous 4-1 league win against Newry, brought his Premiership season goal return to five and McAree was delighted with the all-round performance from his young star.

"He’s exceptional,” he said. “He works extremely hard and is an honest kid. He’s a talented boy who can get himself out of situations, has a turn of pace and thankfully he has started to score goals as well.

"You’d have loved to be able to leave him on but we wanted to close up shop a little bit and make ourselves more secure to get three points.

"I thought for 30 minutes at the start of the game we were exceptional. We started the game the way we wanted to and played some very good football, created opportunities going forward and looked well in control.

"Then the odd challenge came about and it turned into a derby. We helped turn it into a game we didn’t want to be involved in. We wanted to concentrate on playing and not get involved in any nonsense, but we probably allowed ourselves to do that.

"It became a difficult enough game then. The second goal was very important and came at a good time. We’re just delighted to be leaving with three points.”

The County Tyrone outfit have now won four of their last five matches across all competitions, booking their spot in the Mid-Ulster Cup final while also sealing BetMcLean League Cup success against high-flying Cliftonville, who they will face at Stangmore Park next weekend.

McAree has watched on as bottom-six rivals Glenavon put together a winning run of five consecutive league matches to drag themselves from bottom of the table last month to finishing November in seventh and the ex-Glentoran boss feels his side’s luck might be changing.

"We spoke about it as a group that you look at what Glenavon have done by beating the teams in and around them and won five games in a row – look at where it has taken them,” he added. "Back-to-back wins has opened up a bit of a gap between us and the teams behind us and closed it on those teams ahead of us.

"That has been a challenge for us and when you’re in the bottom-six if you can pick up as many back-to-back wins as you can you’ll do ok. There was the odd decision tonight that went in our favour – we didn’t have that bit of luck earlier on in the season.

"We weren’t scoring goals, we weren’t taking our chances, not creating enough and giving away poor goals, and we’ve seemed to stop that to an extent. We can still improve and still have to improve, but it’s definitely more encouraging and more enjoyable.”