STOKE City boss Michael O'Neill hailed his side's victory over Cherries as a "very good day for us", as the Potters avenged a defeat to the Dorset club earlier in the campaign.

Under former manager Jason Tindall, Cherries triumphed 1-0 at the bet365 Stadium in January, thanks to a late Junior Stanislas goal.

But the Potters turned the tables to round off the Championship campaign with victory at the weekend, triumphing 2-0 at Vitality Stadium thanks to goals from Will Forrester and Tommy Smith.

Stoke finish the season in 14th place, while Cherries end sixth and will now face Brentford in the play-off semi-finals later this month.

"I’m delighted with the performance and obviously the result, against a very good side," said O'Neill.

"Obviously a side that have a massive prize to play for in the coming weeks.

"But we set our team out well, we played on the counter-attack and we got what we wanted. We were very good on that side of things, big performances from a lot of players, another clean sheet so all round it was a very good day for us.

"We felt a little bit aggrieved when Bournemouth beat us at the bet365.

"I felt certainly in the first half we were the better team, but they had that little bit of quality that you need."

Teenager Forrester had a debut to remember for Stoke, firing home the opening goal having been a late call-up to O'Neill's injury-ravaged side.

"Harry (Souttar) came out of training on Thursday so we knew then that he wasn’t going to be fit and we had been working on playing with a back three," explained former Northern Ireland boss O'Neill.

"We didn’t really have a back four to be honest! We had to put Will in there, not that he didn’t deserve the chance, but he’s only back himself from injury. But I thought he did very well.

"The goal obviously helps his confidence, but I thought he defended well.

"Bournemouth’s front three are as good as anything in this league and obviously they’ve got the likes of (Sam) Surridge and Shane Long to bring on, who are very good players too.

"So he (Forrester) was tested, right at the top end of this league, and he handled it very well."