Conan Byrne injured, but delighted with Saints Cup win

Despite putting in a stellar man of the match performance in Richmond Park for the Saints, the evening did not end how St Pats player Conan Byrne would have like after the stylish midfielder limped off the park with a suspected hamstring injury.

After the final whistle in tonight’s Irish Daily Mail FAI Cup second round game between St Patrick Athletic and Shamrock Rovers Conan Byrne spoke to Extratime.ie about his sides victory in the Dublin derby.

“It was a deserved victory. I think Shamrock Rovers started the better team and had a great chance when Jason McGuinness hit a bad back pass but we regrouped. From 25 minutes on we controlled the game, we got the game’s first goal followed by a quick second and after that there was only going to be one winner. They [Shamrock Rovers] huffed and puffed in the second half, they came out and tried to grab a goal, and their late goal caused us a bit of panic.”

On the 32nd minute Byrne fired his side into the lead after he found himself through on goal after a mistake by Gavin Brennan, whose attempted pass to Max Blanchard was intercepted. Byrne explains that this type of finishing was something he had worked on.

“It’s funny, that finish, because we were practicing them in training the other day and I just used the defender to put the keeper off sight and curled it into the bottom corner.” Byrne recalled.

Although Byrne was delighted with his own finish he was quick to praise his fellow teammates’ performance.

“Obviously it was a team performance but that got us off the mark. Big Jason McGuinness came up trumps with a great header a couple of minutes later which put us 2-0 up and in the ascendancy.”

With 12 minutes remaining the fatal blow for Byrne arrived after his attempt to make a challenge. After the game he explained that while they do not know the extent of the injury he is facing a layoff on the sidelines.

“I tore my hamstring. We don’t know the extent of the injury as it takes 48 hours before we can see the damage, I’m obviously disappointed but look i will come back stronger, hopefully i’ll be ready for europe.”