BYRON Harrison’s return to the Barrow AFC side brought a huge smile to manager Paul Cox’s face following the 3-1 win over North Ferriby United.

Harrison made his first Bluebirds appearance in almost three months as he came off the bench with six minutes of normal time remaining.

Though he did not have the chance to add to his 21 goals for the season – a total surpassed by strike partner Richie Bennett when he scored his 22nd early in the first half – he suffered no ill effects and it bodes well for the future.

“He (Harrison) made the decision before the game today,” said Cox of the 29-year-old’s role. “I have a special relationship with the man – I put a lot of trust in him and he has put a lot of trust in me.

“When you’ve got that relationship with the player, these decisions have to be down to trust. I gave him the option of if he wanted to have another week’s training, start the game, or come on as a sub.

“The thing about Byron that people probably don’t see is his honesty as an individual. You can tell that when he plays, and I trusted him.

“When he came on, he does things, he has that little bit of a touch of class. The ball sticks to him, he has great feet, and he has a presence about him that not many people do at this level of football.

“He’s contracted for next season and we want to make sure that it’s a long-term situation with him.

“I hop we’ve made the right decision now in introducing him – psychologically, it can’t be anything but positive for him.”

Bennett equalised for Barrow after Reece Thompson had given North Ferriby an early lead, with Shaun Beeley and Jordan Williams both adding their names to the scoresheet before half-time.

Beeley was one of two attack-minded wing-backs, along with Nick Anderton, in a 3-5-2 formation adopted by Cox for the fixture.

It was a shape the manager was happy with as it resulted in a first win in four matches.

“I’ve played this system in League Two with Mansfield, and it’s an effective system,” said Cox.

“When I look through the squad, there are a lot of players who have a lot of fatigue, mentally, as well as physically.

“We went with our usual system at Bromley, and we were a little bit open and a little bit too easy to play against. We went with the system today we finished the game off with against Woking and I thought we looked quite comfortable in the end.

“We got Nick forward early on and Beels. It’s nice when one of your backs scores a goal.

“I think we need to be adaptable, we need to be able to evolve throughout a game, never mind throughout a season, and the players settled into it.

“I thought Akil Wright got into the pocket, especially in the first half when he got forward and he was a threat. The icing on the cake was seeing the big man (Harrison) come on, late on – what a positive note that is for the football club, because we have missed him, he’s been a big loss He’s still fifth in the goal-scoring charts and he has been out for three months.”