A ‘BUZZING’ Fraser Bryden blasted himself to the top of the Sports Direct Premiership most wanted list with a stunning four-goal haul in Crusaders’ 4-1 victory over basement side Glenavon at Seaview.
The clubs started the day as the league’s bottom two but the result opened up a 10-point gap between the pair and has greatly diminished the spectre of automatic relegation for the Crues.
The four full-time clubs are sure to be monitoring the 21-year-old’s situation closely with the Scot at the top of the goal charts with 13 in 14 league matches.
Bryden knocked the stuffing out of Glenavon with goals in the 32nd and 33rd minutes before completing his hat-trick after 71 minutes.
Kyle McClelland pulled a goal back before the former Ayr United and Queen of the South striker completed the rout in the 82nd minute.
Bryden, who revealed he was taking the match ball back to Scotland on a short post-match visit home, said: “I’m buzzing. To score four goals and come away with the three points is brilliant. It was an important win for us.”
And he admitted the switch to Crusaders could not be going any better for him, with a match ball already “in the car boot” thanks to an earlier hat-trick.
“I’ve been loving life since moving to Belfast,” he said. “It’s a tough league – a top quality league.”
Glenavon manager Michael O’Connor is refusing to throw in the towel in terms of his team’s survival hopes despite the fact they are 10 points adrift of the three nearest teams.
Former Northern Ireland midfielder O’Connor said: “Win, lose or draw today, there were still going to be a lot of points to play for.
“The result looks like a bit of a hammering but in the early part of the game I felt we were the better team. But two goals in two minutes basically killed it.
“Crusaders are very dangerous down the left and we managed to deal with that for a while.”
He added: “Larne away on Friday night will be a really tough game. But we’ll take each game as it comes and try and get points on the board.”
Portadown are now the team immediately above their derby rivals and added a point to their own tally with a 1-1 draw against Bangor at Shamrock Park.
Ballycran hurler Ben Arthurs equalised for Bangor in the 48th minute after Eamon Fyfe had opened the scoring on 36 minutes.
Ports boss Niall Currie felt his team had squandered the opportunity to bag a home win.
“It’s two points dropped. We should have been a couple up at half time. We then switched off at the start of the second half and got punished,” he said.
“But there was plenty of heart and endeavour though we should have got the three points.”
He added: “Our biggest problem this season has been long-term injuries. It was great to see Josh Ukek back today. We’ve had really, really bad luck with injuries.
“If we can get three or four players back over the next week or so it will make a huge difference to us. Shay McCartan isn’t too far away, hopefully he’ll be back next week (at Carrick).
“We played the top four teams there recently, we beat Linfield on a great night and now we’re going on a run of games where we’ll be very confident of picking up points.
“We’re going to be okay.”
Only two matches went ahead on Saturday due to international call-ups, while Glentoran’s clash with Carrick Rangers at the Oval on Friday night fell victim to a waterlogged pitch.
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