TOM Rogic, the Celtic midfielder, has underlined his determination to build on his tally for the season after scoring “my best goal ever” against Ross County yesterday.
Rogic netted from just outside the County penalty box shortly before half-time in the Ladbrokes Premiership match at the Global Energy Stadium in Dingwall.
His impressive strike broke the deadlock and helped Ronny Deila’s side on their way to a comfortable 4-1 victory over Jim McIntyre’s team – a result which moved them six points clear at the head of the top flight table.
The 22-year-old, who will fly out Glasgow to Australia later today to join up with his national squad for an international double header, admitted he was keen to plunder more this term.
“I’m not sure I’ve scored a better goal than that, so it was nice,” he said. “It was possibly my best goal ever.
“I had a backheel against Hearts the other week, but it depends which way you look at it. Listen, it’s always good to score, hopefully I’ll keep adding to that and build on this.
“Competition for places within the squad is tough, but it’s healthy for the team and, so while I’m pleased to score, the most important thing is the team and it was overall a good performance.
“It was important to bounce back from the result in midweek and I thought we did that today. There’s not many teams are going to come here and win 4-1 so it was really positive.
“I don’t think we performed to the level we know we can in the Europa League game against Molde, but that’s gone now and our focus was only on today and putting in a good performance.
“It’s a tough place to come but it was important to bounce back from midweek with a good performance.
“It was nice to score and I think it came at an important time when the game was at 0-0 and a bit tense.
“We came out in the second half and got a couple more good goals which I think made it a bit more comfortable for us.”
Rogic added: “We’ve won 4-1, but it was still a battle. If you look at the conditions in the first half and the fact they had a good chance at 0-0, things could have become quite difficult very quickly.
“So it’s a tough place to come and everyone was feeling it was a short turnaround between games so it was important we got out on the pitch to show what we can do - and I think we did that.”
Rogic is returning home to play for Australia in games against Kyrgyzstan at home in Canberra on Thursday and Bangladesh away in Dhaka next Tuesday.
Having missed most of last season due to injury, he is keen to play in both games and believes being involved in the World Cup qualifiers will help his form with Celtic.
“I’m on a flight to Australia first thing, which will be about 24 hours travelling,” he said.
“I’ll have a couple of games while I’m out there and then back here the following Wednesday. But that’s just the nature of it, you get used to it as it’s something you just have to do.
“I don’t mind the demands of travelling. Any chance to represent your country is a privilege so I’m certainly not going to turn that down.”
Rogic continued: “Off the back of last season when I missed so much through injury it’s nice to be getting as many games as I am.
“I’m just looking to build on the start of the season, there’s still a lot of football to come and hopefully I can keep improving.
“It’s not easy to get your body used to the different time zones. I’ll land in Australia on Tuesday night and get my body as recovered as quickly as I can for the game on Thursday and then go from there.
“But there’s nothing you can do with it, you just have to deal with it and be professional about it.”
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