Linfield’s humble hat-trick hero shares the love after spectacular opening day

In just one game, the striker has notched more league goals this term than he did from signing for the club in January to the end of last season

Kieran Offord was keen to share the love with his Linfield team-mates after his opening day hat-trick propelled the Blues to a 3-0 win over Dungannon Swifts at the weekend.

The Windsor Park clash between the league champions and the Irish Cup holders was keenly contested in the first half but three mintues after the break Offord buried a penalty before adding two more to get his campaign off to a flier.

Indeed, in just one game, the striker has notched more league goals this term than he did from signing for the club in January to the end of last season, when he notched just twice.

But the Scot name-checked regular penalty taker Chris Shields and striker partner Matthew Fitzpatrick for their roles in his treble, giving an insight into what makes Linfield such a formidable, cohesive unit under boss David Healy.

“Shieldsy spoke to me in training, and said ‘if you’re confident, tell me at the time and I’ll let you take it’, so I came in after the game and thanked him because that’s what set me up for the hat-trick,” revealed Offord.

“Before the penalty I don’t think I’d had any shots but after Shieldsy gave me the penalty that then gave me the confidence to just keep scoring.”

The 21-year-old took a mature view of his settling in period in south Belfast, knowing patience would be key when joining a club who were runaway league leaders at the time.

“Me and the gaffer spoke a lot of times about how coming into the team in January is tough regardless, never mind when the team’s been so successful.

“So I knew I wasn’t going to take Fitzy’s place or at the time Joel Cooper’s place at that point unless something happened.

“But coming into this season now, I think it’s my role and I need to keep it mine.

“Me and Fitzy are up front in a two and I feel just naturally, because Fitzy is more of an aerial threat, then if we go for a long ball it’s to go to Fitzy and not me, I’ll just run off him.

“I just like playing with him as he brings me into the game and I bring him into the game so I feel like there’s a partnership building.

“When I’m played consistently I know that my abilities can shine through. It’s brilliant to get the league campaign kicked off.

“We’ve been looking forward to this, it’s the bread and butter, we’re champions and we need to defend our title so it was important to open the season in a winning manner.

“There’s been a lot of talk of ‘can we do it again?’ and against Dungannon I feel we’ve proved we’re here and we’re going to try to win it again.”