Rodney McAree would 'absolutely love' to deliver special Irish Cup run for club's growing supporter base

Now over halfway through the Premiership campaign, McAree’s men sit third – just one point adrift of second-placed Glentoran – in their pursuit of a first top-six finish since 2010 and have also reached the Mid-Ulster Cup final where they’ll face Loughgall later this month.

A John McGovern brace combined with Brandon Bermingham’s debut strike and further goals from Adam Glenny and Andrew Mitchell ensured it was a routine win against Rathfriland, setting up a sixth round home showdown with Coleraine.

The Swifts reached the Irish Cup last-four during the 2022/23 season – current Bannsiders chief Dean Shiels was in charge then – and were only denied a first final appearance since 2007 by a late Declan Caddell strike as eventual champions Crusaders progressed.

McAree has previously praised the work done by the club’s Spirit of ‘49 Supporters Club, which was formed ahead of last season and has helped bring more people through the Stangmore Park gates – statistician Marshall Gillespie reported in December that Dungannon’s average home attendance has increased by 111 per match compared to the 2023/24 campaign.

They’ve watched on as Dungannon have collected more league points on home turf (22) than any other top-flight team while only Linfield and Coleraine (both 19) have netted more goals than their 16.

McAree scored in the County Tyrone club’s sole final appearance 18 years ago and also converted his penalty during a painful shootout defeat to the Blues at Windsor Park, but now he’s looking to deliver more memories for the current generation of fans.

"I’d absolutely love it,” he said. “Everybody dreams of getting to an Irish Cup final and I’m no different.

“With the support we have at the minute it would be brilliant to give them a day out but there’s a long way to go until we get to that stage.

"The objective at the start of the day is to get into the hat for the next round and ultimately that’s what we’ve done.

"At times I thought we could have been a lot better than we were...we go in 2-0 up at half-time after a couple of really good passes from Kealan Dillon, which has got us ahead.

"At the start of the second half we were poor and sloppy. I made a change to our shape which probably didn’t help us but we rectified that and I thought we finished the game strongly.

"I thought we restricted them to little. They are a good team, well organised and have players like Ruari Fitzpatrick who can cause you problems.

"It was important that mentally we were right and that we went about our business in the correct way.

"It’s nice to keep a clean sheet and score a few goals but most importantly it’s all about being in the hat.”

McAree has an abundance of attacking options at his disposal and those have been further boosted by the recruitment of Bermingham, a former Drogheda United star who has spent the past four years in America.

Summer signing McGovern is also back on the goal trail after following up a Boxing Day strike against Loughgall with another two on Saturday.

"John has been struggling a bit with a thigh injury so it gave us an opportunity to control his minutes,” added McAree. "With his first goal I thought he showed good perseverance winning the ball back and it was a good finish and his second was a great header.

"I’m delighted to see him coming off the bench to score, I’m delighted to see Brandon Bermingham score and to see Mitch score too.”