Hard work plays off for hat-trick hero Byrne

Veteran striker Jason Byrne rolled back the years to end a ten-game goal drought and bag his first hat-trick in several years as Bray Wanderers beat Drogheda United 3-2 in a dramatic fashion.

Having finished signing a few autographs Extratime.ie caught up with the hero of the hour and he was in jubilant form.

“It’s been a while since I’ve scored,” laughed the striker, “It feels great, once you get the first goal the rest seem to come. It hasn’t been playing on my mind too much though because we’ve been working hard and it would be different if we had been working this hard and losing, then I would start to be questioning myself, but the hunger is still there and I’ve always said that if you work hard you get your rewards and tonight I got my rewards.”

Although you could look at the scoresheet and imagine it was an individual performance from Byrne, the striker was in-fact aided by a very competent supporting cast, none less than Kieran Marty Waters who setup the second goal.

“That’s what you get off Marty, he’s a real livewire, he has three or four players around him and he still comes out with the ball. He’s after bringing a new element to his game when it comes to crosses, he’s starting to get into good positions and getting his head up when before he might panic when he goes past a few players. But he got his head up tonight and set me up for the second goal which was great.”

Having twice taken the lead, Bray were pegged back by Drogheda but in the 94^th minute they were awarded a free-kick as David Cassidy saw red for Drogheda and the third goal seemed to have a sense of inevitability about it. Kevin Knight’s inviting cross was met by the head of Shane O’Connor before Byrne popped up to tap home the loose ball.

“It was a great header by Shane, it was probably the first great ball we got all night as we didn’t beat the first man much but Kevin put a great ball in and Shane got a great header on the ball and my strikers instinct said to me ‘just follow it in’, I was always told to follow the ball in and the keeper made a good save and it came off the post and luckily it bounced to me and I was on the move and scored.”

It was this movement all night from Byrne which saw him consistently pop up in the right places and it’s something he’s trying to instil in some of the other players.

“It’s funny you say that because I’ve been speaking to young Izzy Akinade in there and that’s one of the things he needs to bring into his game, he’s been standing still a lot when the ball is being crossed and he wants that perfect pass but you have to keep on the move and get yourself into those positions.”

The Seagulls have hit a real rich vein of form, winning three in their last four games and Byrne feels that the squad have finally got a cohesiveness which was missing earlier in the year.

“We had a few players out injured at the start of the season and we were chopping and changing but now we look more like a solid unit now, I know we conceded a couple of goals tonight, but over the last few weeks we are doing well and we are scoring a bit more now which at the start of the season we weren’t.”

Up next for Bray is the EA Sports Cup tie with Mervue United and Byrne is relishing the opportunity to continue his goal-scoring.

"Yeah without a doubt I’m looking forward to the next game, I mean if you get one the floodgates open, you don’t care if it comes off your backside or your head, it just gives you that confidence to continue to go forward and try and get more. "