Davies has so much to give

BACK IN THE FOLD . . . forward Craig Davies has returned to SportsDirect.com Park 10 years after first signing for the club

TWENTY months and 17 days.

That's how long it's been since Craig Davies enjoyed the benefit of three consecutive first-team starts, back in his Wigan days.

Saturday, November 7, 2015, saw him feature from the off in a 4-0 FA Cup defeat at Bury. Three days later, he helped beat Blackpool 4-0 in the Johnstone's Paint Trophy. Then, on November 14, the striker was part of the Wigan side that won 2-0 at Rochdale. A total of 59 mainly bite-sized substitute appearances have followed since ­- punctuated by the odd (six, to be exact) occasion where Athletic's new striker has been named from the start.

Little wonder, given such limited involvement of a few minutes here and there as matches have wound down, that the ex-Wolves man's scoring record isn't as impressive as it once was.

Three goals in the last two seasons is a meagre return, but for a player that's barely featured it's understandable.

In the five seasons before 2015-16, the goals tally ran thus for Davies: 25, 11, 13, 5, 7.

Now 31, the Welsh forward is a different sort of player to the one who broke the 20-goal barrier under John Sheridan for Chesterfield in League Two.

Older, wiser and more physical, he's out to put forward an argument that he remains more than simply a hard-running pair of legs to chase down lost causes from 80 minutes onward.

That's why he came back to Athletic, a decade on from his switch from a stint in Verona as a 20-year-old.

Davies feels he has plenty more left to give.

"It is no secret that in the last 18 months I haven't played as much for various reasons. At Scunthorpe, they were chasing promotion and I wasn't really fit having not played for a while," said Davies, who swapped Wigan for a 21-match spell at Glanford Park back in January.

"But there are some amazing people there ­- the backroom staff are top notch and some of the players are really good guys. I really mean that.

"But I knew I needed games to get to a certain level of fitness. It was hard to get that at Scunthorpe, but at the time I wasn't happy at Wigan and needed to move on.

"I am more mature as a person now than I was four or five years ago, so looking back 10 years I am a lot more mature.

"Last time I was here, I had one year in the Championship and now I have four or five years of that experience with me.

"I have had two promotions since then (with Chesterfield and Wigan) and you mature as a player too. I am probably a lot more physical now than I was then, having spent a bit more time in the gym.

"Sometimes, you can't buy experience. Hopefully, I can help younger players around me and the team as well as myself.

"I have not come here to relax. I am here to play and to do well."

The first season with Athletic for the young Wales international was a success. He scored 13 times after a £65,000 move as the club just failed to land back-to-back top-six finishes, ending up in eighth in 2007-08.

"I got injured in the back end of February which killed me a little bit, as we were in a good position at the time," said Davies, reflecting on a season that followed a year on loan with Wolves.

"Just before I got injured, I had scored 13 goals by the middle of February, so in my head I was on course to get 20.

"I had a bad hamstring tear, so that was a big setback.

"It was good in that first year working with Tommy Wright and the gaffer.

"The second year didn't go as well, but because of the hamstring injury I probably didn't train as I should have through the summer and came back a little bit out of sorts.

RHYTHM

"I struggled to hit the ground running in the second year and there were some good players here at the time, too - Lee Hughes did well and Lewis Alessandra had broken through. Because I didn't get consistent games, I struggled to find a rhythm."

From the minutes he has been getting in pre-season, it certainly appears that Sheridan has marked out his man to play a major role this season for Athletic.

And that's music to the ears of the man from Birmingham, whose belief in reaping the rewards of hard work was illustrated in a famous four-goal burst in 19 minutes for Barnsley at St Andrew's in the Championship five years ago.

"I had been in the barber's half a mile away from St Andrew's the day before, talking about the game," Davies said.

"People there were saying, 'you can't celebrate if you score' ­- but I had scored before a few times against Birmingham, so I decided I definitely would celebrate.

"I had never scored at St Andrew's, though. My nan had been ill at the time and that made it even more special. She was always telling me to bring her back a match ball, so to do it in that fashion, live on television, made it a great feeling.

"I started off the day on four goals and was joint-top scorer by 6.30pm.

"I had put in the work. There were other games I hadn't scored in where I had played better, as in the Tuesday night game against Blackburn. The manager then, Keith Hill, who is a really good guy, took me off after 70 minutes in that one and he rang me the next day to tell me he shouldn't have taken me off and that the game changed after that. I appreciated the call and I felt the same.

"He was looking at the fact I had played a lot of minutes. But as a player, you want to be involved in every minute.

"Then on the Saturday, I really got the rewards."

Davies has been involved for Athletic this summer. Here's hoping the hard graft can pay off, for a player desperate to get games and goals.