Brian Barry-Murphy lauds ‘dangerous’ Jack Moylan after brace in Cardiff win

Barry-Murphy said the 'big appeal' of Moylan 'was because of where he’s come from, he has a lot of improvement in him'

Ireland's Jack Moylan scored twice as Cardiff beat Charlton. Pic: Nathan Stirk/Getty Images

Brian Barry-Murphy sung the praises of star summer signing Jack Moylan after his two goals steered Cardiff to their first Championship win of the season in beating Charlton 3-1.

The Republic of Ireland forward, who joined from Lincoln, opened the scoring in the eighth minute, set up Yousef Salech for the second in the 24th and made victory safe with a stunning shot from the edge of the area just after the hour mark after Tyreece Campbell had reduced the deficit.

It meant the Cardiff fans had plenty to shout about after failing to see their side win in their first seven league games since gaining promotion from League One.

Barry-Murphy said: “It was a very important game for us. We felt as if we’d been playing reasonably well and we have to do it again. We knew today’s game was going to be tough, but we played a great game, created really good chances and we took enough of them to win.

“We obviously had a real awareness of what Charlton do and how effective they can be, but we got into the spaces we needed to and created good chances. I was particularly pleased with the response to conceding the goal because that was obviously a test for us.

“We bounced back pretty much straight away and kept creating good chances. In the second half, I felt as if we ran out deserving winners.

“You don’t always get what you feel you deserve. We were clear with the players that there were certain games where we weren’t at our best, but we had full belief that if we kept playing the way we were playing and managed to score the goals we felt we would, we could win the game.

“We felt as if we were bringing a player who would improve the squad when we bought Jack Moylan. He has qualities we probably didn’t have before.

“He’s a very dangerous player in the situations you saw him in today. The big appeal for us was because of where he’s come from, he has a lot of improvement in him. The way he’s working means he will improve a lot and become a great player for the club.” 

While Barry-Murphy was happy, Charlton counterpart Nathan Jones was very much down in the dumps even though it was only Charlton’s second defeat in the first eight games of the season.

“It’s an unrecognisable performance to what we normally do. We got outworked, outbattled, outran, outpassed, outthought – everything about it,” admitted Jones.

“Ironically, we’ve had three massive chances in the game, but that would only have papered over the cracks of a really poor performance.

“We give Cardiff credit because they played well, but we allowed them to do what they wanted. Our intensity in our press, reading the second balls, our physicality – all of it meant it was quite easy to play against us, that’s the big thing I’m embarrassed about.

“We were inept. How we pressed, the work-rate we had – we were really poor. That’s not taking anything from Cardiff, because Cardiff would have had to do something right to have really tested us, but that’s an unacceptable performance from us out of possession, and that’s why we conceded what we did.

“To get any foothold in the game, you have to pass the ball well enough, and we didn’t. When they pressed us, we just gave the ball away, so we were never able to build anything. All in all, that’s a really poor performance from us.”