Anto Flood of St Patrick's Athletic was presented with September’s Airtricity/SWAI Player of the Month Award alongside manager Liam Buckley, holding the Airtricity League Premier Division trophy, and 10-year-old Jack Cummins

PLAY every game as if it's your last. If Anto Flood gave the impression that he was following the old cliché over the past few weeks, it's because, in part, he was.

The striker drove St Pat's to league glory in the closing stages of their title race with a succession of key – and some spectacular – goals.

He has his medal, now he's off to Australia.

It wouldn't be a League of Ireland success story without the economy infiltrating the tale, and the man they call 'Bisto' had known all season that it would potentially be his last in domestic football.

He and his fiancée Amy O'Connell decided last March that their future lay in Sydney and, during the summer as the Saints led the league, they booked their passage and made their commitment.

It is not quite the same as his stints with Orebro in Sweden and Southend United in England – you can't just hop on a plane if things don't work out – but after stints with seven League of Ireland clubs, the SWAI/Airtricity Player of the Month for September has his medal at last and he'll leave it in the safe company of his dad and head for the hills.

REWARDS

"It drove me on all season because I knew from an early stage. I did that extra bit in training and in the gym and felt like I've got the rewards from it," the 28-year old Dubliner explained.

"I have a couple of friends over there and I'm going to meet up with a few of them and head off to Thailand for a month, then down to Sydney for eight or nine months.

"My missus stuck with me the last seven or eight years, she sacrificed a lot of holidays in the summer and it was kind of her time. She wanted to go and experience it, so I backed her up and I'm going to go and do it.

"It was nice to get the league medal. It's my first. They don't come any bigger. What a medal to win, I have it shining on the mantelpiece at home."

At least Flood won't have to worry about jet-lag, given he has been working nights throughout the Saints' title charge. A night auditor for Travelodge, he has been working the graveyard shift over the past year, training either in the evening before heading into work or in the morning before hitting the hay.

"I work from 11.0pm until seven in the morning, I'm back in today," he said yesterday.

"It's grand. My body just adapted to it, really. At the start it was hard but after a couple of months it felt natural, just into the gym the next morning and home and sleep all day.

"It works out well, I still get my seven or eight hours' sleep. Training-wise and everything, it works out well. Some mornings I'd just go straight in after work and others just home to bed for the day and then up for around two or three o'clock."

Just because he is leaving Ireland, of course, doesn't mean he is leaving football and there should be no shortage of takers for the hard-working, skilful striker when he lands Down Under in late December.

He will sound out some teams just below the A-League and see where the interest comes from.

He hasn't ruled out coming home if he doesn't like life in Australia, but Liam Buckley is already planning without him for next season as he plots his title defence.

"I would hope that most of them want to stay, but I'd hope to have it all done over the next few weeks," he said, refusing to comment on Mark Quigley's apparently precarious situation at Shamrock Rovers.

"There are clubs with bigger budgets, we'll have to cut our cloth as we have over the past couple of years.

"I'd like to think the budget will be marginally increased, but the European money everybody talks about won't be in until next Christmas, there are cash flow issues, the €100,000 you get for winning the league, well the lads get a bonus, it is €20,000 for just applying for a licence – hopefully it will be a little bit, but we'll be similar to this year."

Irish Independent