NATHAN Byrne was pleased to take the edge off the Swindon nerves by finding the net from outside the box to set Town on their way to a 5-2 victory over Port Vale.

After racing into a three-goal lead thanks to strikes from Dany N’Guessan, Nile Ranger and Massimo Luongo, Town were pegged back as Tom Pope and Lee Hughes struck to put the result in doubt.

Byrne released the pressure by curling one into the top corner just minutes after Hughes’ goal and the wing back believes the strike was the most vital of his young career to date.

“I’ve been trying to do that for quite few weeks and the keepers have been making good saves, but I got the ball off Alex (Pritchard) and I just kept going towards goal and they backed off and luckily it found the top corner,” he said.

“It’s a tight one from when I scored my first league goal for Crawley but given the situation this might be my most memorable goal so far.

“We knew they were going to come hard at us, and there was a strong wind which made it hard to get the ball up the pitch, but we were happy to get the fourth goal because it settled us down a bit after things got tense.

“We are always confident in our ability and we are happy with the end result although we do have to learn after conceding the two goals.”

Byrne was also pleased with the intensity levels Town were able to show after a hard week in training.

“In the two games previously we lost a bit of intensity, and it seemed a bit slow in the last two games, and the results showed that,” he said.

“We worked hard this week on getting the intensity up and closing players down quickly and it worked for us.

“There is enough talent in the group to win games, but any team can win games in League One on their day so we have to be up for it and show we want it.”