Fraser Bryden wants 'probably the best feeling in the world' one more time to fire Crusaders towards Irish League senior survival
Fraser Bryden wants to experience “probably the best feeling in the world” at least one more time this season to fire Crusaders to Premiership survival.
On 22 times across a campaign so often cast under the cloud of a relegation dogfight for the Belfast club, Bryden has been left smiling at finding the back of the net.
Last Saturday’s strike in Lurgan to secure the three most important points of the programme for the Crues consigned hosts Glenavon to relegation and pushed Bryden and team-mates into preparations now for a two-leg play-off against Championship runners-up Annagh United.
Those games, first in Portadown on April 28 then at Seaview for the May 1 finale, will give Crusaders the pleasure of beating the drop or pain at falling over the final hurdle and facing next season in the second tier.
Centre-forward Bryden, as scorer of half the club’s league goals, is sure to prove at the centre of Crusaders’ bid to complete the job.
"It's unbelievable...probably the best feeling in the world,” said Bryden of his weekend goal to seal a 1-0 win over Glenavon, with Crusaders closing the league campaign today at home to Ballymena United. "It’s a great delivery by Cammy (Cameron Bruce)...I wasn't at my best, I was quite frustrated at some points during the game.
"But, listen, I always back myself in between the goal sticks.
"We've got two massive games to keep ourselves in this league and we know if we go into it with the right manner and the right attitude and play our football then we should be okay.
“It's going to be another big occasion and I'm sure we'll go down and bring an absolute unbelievable support to Annagh...we need to make sure we give the fans something to sing about.
"The support's stuck with us all throughout the season, home and away they’ve been unbelievable and you can see in the numbers today (against Glenavon).
"I've gone to bed and you dream of scoring a winner in these big games, I'm just delighted I could do that.”
Bryden saluted a tactical switch last Saturday by Crues boss Declan Caddell as significant in the single intensity of that high-stakes success, plus highlighted praise for the manager’s big-picture commitment.
"The Gaffer made a wee tactical switch to swap me and ‘Brooksy’ (Adam Brooks),” said Bryden. "I was playing deeper in the first half and then he switches at half-time.
"I've absolutely loved it since moving across from Scotland.
"The Gaffer's been brilliant, all the boys...it's a really good changing room, it's a young changing room.
"Ever since I walked through the door in pre-season he set his foot on how we want to play.
"We've shown how good at times we can be, it's just obviously we've not done it enough, that's why we're in the position we are.
"We knew what was at stake and if we could come down here and get the three points we'd avoid automatically getting relegated.
"The last couple of weeks we've been doing very good, keeping the ball on the deck and moving teams around...we shouldn't be down here, we should be up fighting at the top end of the table.”