Shamrock Rovers have announced the signing of former Man City midfielder Jack Byrne from Kilmarnock. Byrne had been struggling to get into Steve Clarke's side since signing with the SPL side earlier this year, and has taken the opportunity to move back to Ireland in order to play regular football.
Hoops’ manager Stephen Bradley praised the signing, stating that Byrne has an 'unbelievable' ability:
It’s going to be a very good signing for us. Jack has an unbelievable amount of ability. He’s a player who had three or four offers in England and financially they were a lot more rewarding for Jack to go there. I think it shows what sort of mindset he has and the hunger he has to show people how good he is again. And remind people that he’s only 22, not in his late 30s, he’s a young man with a lot of ability.
We’re delighted he’s seen the next step in his career here and he wants to settle down and play his football again. He did train with us before but that was just for Jack to keep fit during the period of the season that he was off.
There were no discussions about signing back then. This time I got word that he was going to leave Kilmarnock and I knew he had offers in England. I just had to make contact and put our case to Jack and see if it fitted him. He’s come and had a look and I’m delighted he’s chosen here to play, to show everyone how good he is and the reason why he got called up to the Ireland squad a couple of years back. We believe that Jack has the ability to go and do that again.
Jack Byrne also spoke positively of the move on Rover's website, revealing that he had been in negotiations for weeks.
I’m absolutely buzzing to get it over and done with now. It’s been brewing for a few weeks and I’m buzzing to be here. I had a chat with Stephen Bradley a couple of weeks ago and it was something that I wanted to do and I felt really excited after speaking to the staff at the club and seeing the facilities that Rovers have.
I played a couple of times for Kilmarnock this year coming off the bench, it’s frustrating when you’re doing everything you can to get into a team. They were getting good results and it was hard to get a start. I took the decision to come home and it’s the best thing for me. When the opportunity came to sign for Shamrock Rovers I snapped the hand off.
