"It's A Great Accolade To Get And I Am Delighted"

Hat-trick hero Martyn Waghorn could not wipe the smile off his face at ful- time as he inspired Derby County to a 6-1 victory over Rotherham United.

The striker opened the scoring from the penalty spot early on before heading home Derby’s third goal before the half time whistle.

He managed to grab his hat-trick, again from the penalty spot, with 20 minutes of the game remaining to record his first in English football.

He would eventually leave the field on 81 minutes to a standing ovation from all four sides at Pride Park Stadium as the Rams returned to action after the international break in stunning fashion as they returned to the division's top six.

“It’s a great accolade to get and I’m delighted for it,” Waghorn told RamsTV. “It was a long time coming but today I just felt we were all at it from the first whistle.

“We’ve had a long break. We had a nice trip away at the start of it, after being given some time off, but since we came back training has been hard. It’s been intense and been good. The boys have been raring to go.

“You sit there before a game and you just know that something is building and the boys were at it and it was a joy to play in today.

“We have started well in the last few games. We have got the early goals sometimes and not really built on it and we just needed to get that second goal.

“We got that today and it helps because it deflates them. It was always coming and we needed it to get the big performance.

“It’s huge confidence wise to go into the final set of fixtures and it gives us a platform to build on.

“It was a good dominant performance and we know what we’re capable of, so we need to take that going forward now.”

It was the first time the Rams have scored six goals at Pride Park Stadium since it opened in 1997.

The last time Derby managed six in a game was Easter 1996 at the old Baseball Ground.

With the Rams leading 3-0 at the half time interval, Waghorn revealed: “We spoke at half time and the gaffer told us to get more goals, be selfish, be hungry and get the goals and it was a dominative and controlled performance from the boys.”

Today was only Derby’s second and third penalties in the league this season.

Waghorn took the club’s last one against Hull City back in early September and he had no hesitation in stepping up again.

“People ask me a lot about penalties but for me as a striker, it is a free effort at goal and opportunity to get your tally up,” he said. “I missed a penalty in the semi-final of the play-offs when I was younger with Leicester City and from then on, it’s just one of those things.

“If you miss one, you miss one. If don’t then great and I just love it. I’m always confident I am going to hit the target and you have to trust your ability.

“I think both of them was penalties. Mounty’s trickery is clever, his movement caused problems and Lawrence made a great run off the line. I made sure I was getting the penalty.”

The three points moved the Rams back into the Sky Bet Championship play-off places but with eight games still remaining, there is still a long way to go.

“There is a large amount of teams that are fighting for the play-off spots,” Waghorn commented. “It’s going to be difficult because there are a huge amount of teams that have got the quality.

“It’s going to be an interesting last month of the season, but we can just do what we need to do. The goal tally helps because it could turn out to be an extra point at the end of the season so we just need to keep going and building on that.

“I could have been a bit more ruthless over the season and could have been selfish a bit more but today is a good day and I will keep working hard and hopefully stay in the team.”