Sean Maguire was happy to get back out on the pitch and on the scoresheet in Saturday’s 2-0 victory over Brentford after the freak injury he suffered to his eye.
Maguire missed the trip to Nottingham Forest before the international break and also had to pull out of the Republic of Ireland squad due to the injury.
It didn’t take him long, though, to get firing as he opened the scoring after just four minutes at Deepdale.
Speaking to iFollowPNE, Maguire said: “It has been a strange couple of weeks; I had probably 12 days off because of resting that freak injury to my eye.
“When it had happened in training, the first four or five days I couldn’t really see out of my left eye. I went to see a specialist about a week into when it happened and she gave me the go-ahead to get back into training Tuesday to follow it up with a good performance today.
“It was good to get through 90 minutes today with no issues and to get on the scoresheet was a plus.”
Maguire’s goal in the early stages came from a brilliant ball from Ryan Ledson, which North End’s No.24 chested down and calmly slotted past away goalkeeper David Raya.
Maguire said: “I think obviously the defender must have thought I was going to hit it first time but thankfully I’ve took it down.
“It’s a great start to the game and that just gave us that edge to get on the front foot.
“It (the second goal) came at a good time for us because I think they were starting to come back on top. Raff (Joe Rafferty) has cut inside and I didn’t even see Fish (Darnell Fisher) on the other side, but thankfully he has opened it out and squared it to the back and it’s 2-0.”
Seani was also well aware of the mental boost PNE can gain from winning straight after the international break and ahead of a busy run of fixtures.
“It was important to win today because I think our record straight after the international break in probably my three years while I’ve been here hasn’t been great, so it was important to get back to winning ways today.
“I think that leaves us fifth in the table and on a personal note it was nice to get on the scoresheet.
“This is the last full week of preparing for a game before the next international break. I think it’s important, now Birmingham away next week and then Man City after that.”
Maguire played the majority of this afternoon’s game on the left but he recognised the interchangeability which PNE have at the top of the field.
He said: “We’re very flexible, the three of us (Maguire, Billy Bodin and Tom Barkhuizen). Obviously, Barks and Billy aren’t out-and-out No.9s, so it’s good when Barks makes that run out wide and I can come inside and it worked quite well.
“I thought the three of us worked our socks off because they play three at the back and the way that we wanted to press, they left us a bit vulnerable in the wide areas but I thought everyone to a man was brilliant today.”
Watch Sean Maguire’s full interview in the video above.