Ronan Murray lands monthly honour for the first time

GALWAY United striker and Erris native Ronan Murray has been named the SSE Airtricity/Soccer Writers’ Association of Ireland Player of the Month for August.

It's the first time Murray has won the monthly award, and he fought off strong competition from Trevor Clarke of Shamrock Rovers and Dundalk's Michael Duffy, who finished second and third respectively, to claim it.

The striker netted three league goals during the month, including brace against relegation rivals Finn Harps, as well as hat trick against Killester in the Irish Daily Mail FAI Cup.

Murray was delighted to win the award but knows Galway's have endured a tough season. Shane Keegan's side were recently knocked out of the FAI Cup by Limerick at the quarterfinal stage and sit four points from safety in the league.

Said Murray: “I’m over the moon to win the award. The five other lads that were nominated all had a phenomenal month too. Any one of them could have won it.

“It was disappointing to go out of the cup because we were on a good run. We just didn't show what we are capable of against Limerick and they were the better team on the night. They deserved to go through.”

Despite sitting second from bottom in the league, Murray reckons there is enough class in the Galway side to keep the Tribesmen in the Premier Division.

“We've had belief from day one,” he said. “We have the players to stay up, we just need to put a run together quickly. It would be a massive achievement if we could stay up because we've been down the bottom more or less all season.

“But it only matters who is down there when the season is over. We're hopeful we can do it and we're just going to take one game at a time. We have two home games coming up and we'll be aiming to get four to six points out of them.”