Dungannon Swifts boss Rodney McAree praised his side's "character" and "professionalism" after they shrugged off their cup woes to progress to the Irish Premiership European play-off semi-final.
Just four days on from losing the Irish Cup final to Coleraine, the Swifts beat 10-man Carrick Rangers 3-1 at Stangmore Park to set up a semi-final against Cliftonville at Solitude on Saturday.
Leo Alves put the hosts in front with a fine free-kick, and while Carrick hit back through Luke McCullough after losing goalkeeper Nathan Gartside to a red card, goals from Caolan Marron and Kealan Dillon wrapped up the win for McAree's side.
"I thought we responded really well," said McAree.
"The character we showed, the professionalism was superb and we were tested a few times. Bigi [Gael Bigirimana] broke down in the warm-up so that was an adjustment and then Danny Wallace gets banged in the nose and has to come off.
"Peter Maguire has had food poisoning the past 24 hours, he didn't know whether he would be fit until three o'clock this afternoon and was still struggling at that stage but came on and did exceptionally well.
"After the first 10 minutes I thought we played very well. The first 10 minutes we were a little bit slow on the ball but after that I think we did really well.
"We deservedly took the lead, their keeper was sent off and I thought we were very good after that apart from the goal we conceded."
The winners of Saturday's semi-final (18:00 BST) will face Linfield in Tuesday's play-off decider at Windsor Park.
