Rodney McAree credits Ruaidhri Donnelly's 'attitude' after crucial impact against Ballymena United

The hosts would take the lead on 28 minutes as Sean Graham latched onto a defensive mistake to fire past Aaron McCarey.

However, Glentoran would restore parity before the break as Ruaidhri Donnelly fired a ball across goal that was lashed home by his brother Jay, who netted his 60th goal for the club.

Two goals in two second-half minutes would ultimately do the damage as Ruaidhri Donnelly was in the right place at the right time to punish slack defending by the Sky Blues as he netted his first league goals since August.

"I'm delighted for Ruaidhri, he puts a big shift in and does a lot of unseen work,” said McAree, who extended his unbeaten run as Glentoran manager to six games.

"He's very good defensively from the wide area and he's a great lad to have about.

"I was undecided as to whether I'd go with him or Junior as we were missing Niall, but I plumped for Ruaidhri as he has done really well recently and has shown a really good attitude in and around the training ground.

"Coming to Ballymena on Friday night he knows what that's all about so I was delighted to see him grab a couple of goals.”

Glentoran came into the contest after a notable ‘Big Two’ scalp against Linfield and McAree believes the euphoria of that triumph had a big part to play in his side’s slow start.

"Tuesday night might have had an impact as the boys put a lot of effort into it,” he continued.

"We worked extremely hard against Linfield to get the three points and get the result which we did.

"So maybe it took a bit of time to get the legs going again, or they maybe dwelt on the fact that we had just beaten Linfield 3-0.

"It is very hard when you start poorly, it's hard to get yourself going again.

"My dad always said if you start like a donkey you finish like a donkey, but I thought we started like a donkey but we got ourselves going and we improved as the game went on."