Town striker Daryl Murphy has explained why he feels things clicked so dramatically for him in the recent 5-2 win at Rotherham, the highlight of which was his first hat-trick in English football.

Now, having broken his duck in such spectacular style, the Republic of Ireland international is keen to make up for not being able to find the net in his first 11 outings of the current campaign.

Murphy said: “It was all about getting up to match speed really, if I’m honest. It’s been hard since coming back in pre-season.

“I came back late and picked up a few niggles, then I was starting and coming on as a sub. I just needed a run of games to get my fitness.

“In the last two or three I’ve felt 100 per cent sharpness-wise and generally just a whole lot better. I knew that as long as I was getting chances I would take one and then it would go from there.”

Murphy admitted he had suffered a drop in confidence and that after 27 scoring goals last term he had become more reluctant to shoot, recalling two missed opportunities in the goalless draw with Cardiff that preceded the wins over struggling duo Bolton and Rotherham.

He added: “For the first one I could see that their defender was sliding before I even went to hit it, so I thought that if I checked back he would have gone flying.

But my touch was obviously a bit too big — he’s gone sliding and my touch took it back inside for the other defender.

“The second one, I should have hit it. I’ve watched it a few times since then and that’s the one I’m more disappointed with.

“Last season I would shoot from everywhere and I was taking things on that I wouldn’t usually have done.

“But when you haven’t scored for quite a while you are trying to make sure everything is perfect for you to hit, whereas when you’re in a rich vein of form you just hit it without thinking about it.

“I think that was creeping into my game but after getting a hat-trick I think you’ll see me shooting a lot more.

“Scoring brings confidence so you can imagine what a hat-trick does for you. I think I’m always confident that I’ll score — I was doing it in most games last season because I knew I would get a chance.”

Murphy also believes that Town’s new-look striking options, boosted by the summer signing of Brett Pitman from Bournemouth, is another reason why the goals should flow more consistently in the months ahead.

He said: “I think Brett’s a class player and he can do everything really. He can drop off, he can run in behind, he holds it up well, he’s very good in the air and he’s a great finisher, as you’ve already seen.

“He also does the dirty work that I do so we can share the load and you get a little bit more of a breather when he’s doing all that as well. He’s been brilliant since he’s come in.

“It’s really starting to come together up front. It was always going to take time for players to gel and get to know each other’s games.

“Freddie [Sears] has been brilliant from the start and altered the games he’s played. He’s a very dangerous player and we’re delighted he’s in our team because you’d hate to be playing against a player of his quality.

“In the last few games it has all clicked — we’ve been getting more chances and scoring more goals — and it’s good to be over that run of just one win in 10 league games.

“But I think every team is going to go through a spell like that. We didn’t have great results but although we weren’t scoring a lot of goals we were keeping clean sheets, so it wasn’t as if we were losing many games either.

“It was just a case of us not being able to find a rhythm of scoring and kick it on. In the last two we managed to do that and we were creating a lot more chances.

“Getting off to a flier at the start of the season probably raised a bit of expectation that it was going to be easy but we never thought that for a second because this league is just a mad league. We’ve had our bad spell and hopefully we can kick on now.”

Photo: Action Images

rfretwell added 08:40 - Nov 20 Not quite right Murph, in october we scored one in five matches and conceded 6. Onwards and upwards from here lets hope.
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TR11BLU added 09:24 - Nov 20 Its taken him til Nov to get up to speed. Euro finals next year, hmmm, maybe the wait will be longer next season.
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distractored added 10:24 - Nov 20 Bang three in against Wolves please Murph.
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Bluebell added 11:44 - Nov 20 I think we will see a 'different' Murphy now. It was obvious he was desperate to score and was making mistakes because of it. Now that pressure is off hopefully he can start scoring regularly. I never expected to see him getting 27 again but if he can get to 15 this season along, with all the other players scoring, I will be a happy bunny.
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TimmyH added 13:21 - Nov 20 Have to say he looked out of his depth playing for Republic of Ireland, both games seemed to pass him by. Hopefully playing at that level over the last couple of games will sharpen him up further (even though he has played better over the last couple of Championship games). Expecting a hat-trick of wins tomorrow.
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rinkydinkpanther added 14:10 - Nov 20 Steady. Let's not re-write the history of this season just yet, big man. We've beaten two teams in the bottom three over the last two games, which you'd hope we'd do. The clean sheets have only come in the last few games, with Rotherham rather blotting that. Up until then, we were conceding left, right and centre. We still might from hereon in. Lose against Wolves and nothing's really changed. Let's see if we can put a real run together before everyone starts slapping themselves on the back. Lose against Wolves

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