Stephen Small feels his young Ballyclare Comrades side are coming of age after Irish Cup upset against Dungannon Swifts

​Dungannon, fresh off beating Linfield at Windsor Park last weekend, took a first-half lead through Cahal McGinty before Gary Donnelly brought Ballyclare level in the 69th minute.

That was short-lived with Thomas Maguire restoring the Swifts advantage, but an almost immediate response from Alan McMurtry and Darius Roohi’s late winner ensured Ballyclare’s progression into the last-eight once again, where they’ll travel to 23-time winners Glentoran.

All 11 players that started for the Comrades at Stangmore Park were aged 26 or under, and Small hopes they can do themselves justice at The Oval next month.

"I was hoping we'd avoid Larne or Cliftonville in the draw as we've a couple of loan players who would've been very disappointed,” he told BBC Sportsound. "So I'm delighted we avoided those two.

"We know the standard of the Premiership is really, really good and make no mistake, Dungannon were fantastic today and it was a real big result for us.

"The Championship is a good league, it's really competitive so it's good to see 50 per cent of the teams make it through to the quarter-final stages.

"I think we can just go and express ourselves (against Glentoran).

"We reached this stage last year against Ballymena and I'm not sure we did ourselves justice.

"We've probably got the youngest age profile in the Championship and they're starting to grow as a group so I just hope they can go to the Oval, express themselves and do themselves justice."

Small also hailed Roohi for staying alert to score his 15th goal of the season across competitions.

"The boys were saying it was the only touch he had in the game,” he added. "He's used to being instrumental at the top end of the pitch...he had a different job today which was as a lone striker.

"It was a bit foreign to him but he took his chance when it came, which we know he has that capacity.”