Iron man Crooks has real mettle
MATT CROOKS admits his first Scunthorpe United goal was a dream come true as he hit a dramatic late winner against Rochdale on Tuesday night.
The Rangers midfielder has made nine appearances for Graham Alexander’s side since making the move to Glanford Park i n January.
The loan switch has given Crooks a chance to re-establish himself after a frustrating first half of the campaign that saw him struggle to make the breakthrough at Ibrox.
His injury-time strike ended a run of nine games without a win for the Iron and was a timely boost to their play-off hopes as they bid for promotion to the Championship this term.
Crooks said: “That’s what you dream of in football – last-minute goals in front of your own fans.
“When I saw it dropping I thought, concentrate on the ball and try to hit it as cleanly as I could. I was too tired to do anything else, so I just went for the shot and it went in.
“We’ve probably put in better performances than that over the past few games, but we got the three points and that’s the main thing.
“We dug in. The first half wasn’t how we wanted it to go, but we dug in there in the second half and fought until the end.
“We’ve shown some character tonight, and we stuck together as a team.
“Hopefully we can build on this now, take it into the few games and create some more wins.
“We have been on a bad run of games recently, but that can easily turn the other way.
“There’s still a lot of games to go and a lot of points to be won, so hopefully we can win as many as we can.
“We’ve got to remain focused on the next game now. They’re all big games, so we’ve got to aim for three points i n every fixture.”