Crusaders delight at debut by Cameron Dummigan

Lurgan-born Dummigan arrived in the January transfer window on a loan deal from Dundalk, having previously spent time at Burnley and Oldham Athletic.

His performance attracted praise from Stephen Baxter - with the Crues boss expecting even more to come from the former Northern Ireland under 21 international.

“Cameron Dummigan is an outstanding player,” said Baxter. “He’s easy on the eye, has a natural footballing brain and passes it great and I was pleased with how he defended the ball at times.

“He cleared one off our line as well with two men around him.

“He has great awareness and played the game at the highest level in England but will take just a while to get up to speed with the Irish League as it’s a different style of football to which he maybe has to adapt.

“But with a player who has played at the level Cameron has he will turn into a super, super player.

“He is 23-years-old so has youth on his side and you don’t necessarily need that extra fitness but he has been on his break (coming from the League of Ireland).

“He’s in his pre-season training really, not having played any football really bar 45 minutes of a friendly as Dundalk are only really getting started.

“Training for a few weeks with us has allowed him to get up to some sort of level but I’m comfortable to play him at this moment in time.

“I think this was the right game to get him started and now it’s about getting Cameron up to the level we want but you could see what he gave us today.”

Baxter highlighted the frustration of a first goal conceded in seven games but was full of praise overall for what he considered a well-earned win.

“When preparing through the week for games of this size and magnitude you have to be clinical in your approach,” he said. “Carrick are a really difficult side to deal with at home, they’ve done really well this season and have capable players.

“It was important we came with the hunger and attitude to win, I felt we were really on it and the early goal settled us down well.

“We have to use the squad as wisely as we can with the amount of games but didn’t want to tinker with five or six changes, we wanted to keep the framework of the team together but rotate a couple to help us moving forward.

“I gave off at half-time about who was picking up as we don’t know who deflected it but we know that Jarlath O’Rourke lost his man on the edge of the box to let the shot get away and those are things we work hard on.

“But we cannot be too hard on the players, having conceded one in our last seven games.