It takes a lot of bottle to step up and take a penalty in a high-pressure situation, but it takes even more nerve to produce a Panenka, especially when there's £200,000 riding on the outcome!
That's exactly what happened at The Oval on Saturday evening when Junior showed nerves of steel to help fire Glentoran to European qualification.
The 29-year-old frontman coolly dinked the ball into the net past his for Derry City teammate Nathan Gartside after Jonny Addis had upended Conor McMenamin in the box.
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The Englishman revealed he wanted to produce something the Cliftonville keeper wouldn't expect, even if it could have landed him in hot water with his manager Rodney McAree.
“I played with Nathan at Derry and took a lot of penalties against him - to be fair I’ve done a few Panenkas against him, but I just thought I’d do something he wouldn’t expect," explained Junior.
“Thankfully it worked. I don’t even want to think what Rodney thought at the time, though!"
Junior bagged a second five minutes before half-time as the Glens rammed home their dominance and sealed a place in the Europa Conference League qualifiers.
It was his fourth goal in as many games as the striker finished the season strongly.
“I didn’t have a pre-season and I was injured a lot last season, so I knew I’d have to be patient when I came in," said Junior.
“I knew I just needed to get fitter and fitter and that makes it easier to contribute to the team.
“We’ve got a very good quad here, so it was hard for me to come straight in because we were winning and scoring a lot of goals.
“Thankfully when I have played I’ve managed to do alright and we’ve won games.
“During the play-offs and the games after the split, we worked hard as a team and things came together for us.
“We scored goals in the early stages of games, and that helped us out and we grew in confidence."
Junior is already looking forward to next season as he hopes both he and Glentoran can keep their form going.
“European football is big at any club and I’m delighted we were able to get across the line," he said.
“We have to take it step by step and come in for pre-season ready to go.
“We have to try to start next season the way we finished this one. Everyone looks confident and positive.
“It’s been nothing but good vibes since I got here and hopefully we keep that up and we start flying.”
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