Rhyan Grant is doing all the right things at Sydney FC.
Despite the Sky Blues failing to secure their first win of the season, young Sydney FC midfielder Rhyan Grant has repaid the club’s faith in offering him a two year contract by scoring the opening goal in the 1-1 draw against Central Coast Mariners on Saturday night.
The Bathurst junior made a flying start against the Mariners, linking well with midfield partner Nikcy Carle and fellow young gun Kofi Danning up front.
In the 47th minute, he pounced on a fumble from Central Coast’s young keeper Matthew Ryan to give Sydney FC the lead and open his A-League account.
“To be honest I can’t really remember it. I saw the cross coming in and unfortunately for the keeper he couldn-t keep hold of it and I was just in the right place at the right time,” Grant said after the match.
“I-m just happy to score and to have put one away finally.”
Grant, a graduate of the Sydney FC youth system, recently extended his contract for a further two years and was delighted to have made such an impact so soon after re-signing.
“I’m happy, I-ve been rewarded by scoring and I-ve rewarded the club too for putting faith in me.”
Grant has become an integral part of the team that has lately been hit hard by injuries to both the ‘Killer Bs- and captain Terry McFlynn, with the latter likely to miss the next two matches due to a hamstring injury.
“Its unfortunate that we-ve lost some of the more experienced and key players but I think some of the younger boys have come in and done well,” he said.
“They’re not big name players but they do the hard yards, put in hard work and it’s starting to pay off with individual performances. We didn-t get the win tonight but I thought the young boys did alright, as did the whole team.”
Until the sending off of Liam Reddy it was a re-energized Sydney that battled the Mariners in the second half on Saturday night, with Carle, Mark Bridge and Grant controlling the midfield and stringing together some promising chances.
“We looked good, we had a lot of opportunities but we just couldn-t put them away. [We’ve got to] keep the ball more, I know it-s a cliché but we did it at times tonight and it looked good.”
