Exclusive: Ryan Edmondson admits he's 'enjoying football a lot more' since leaving Carlisle United for Central Coast

Ryan Edmondson has opened up the Greatest Hits Radio about his time at Carlisle, leaving for Australia and success on the pitch since.

The 23 year old striker played for Carlisle United for 2 years, having signed in June 2022, making 41 appearances and scoring 5 goals. He was part of the team that saw the Cumbrians promoted from league 2 following their Wembley win against Stockport in the 2022/23 season.

Despite this, just 7 months later he left the club by mutual consent, signing for the Central Coast Mariners in Australia on a two and a half year deal, linking up with his former coach at Leeds United Mark Jackson.

Since then he's gone on to score a hat-trick in the AFC Cup, 2 league goals as the Mariners went on to win the A League and win the AFC Cup.

Despite the success of the move, Edmondson admits it wasn't an easy decision: "We weren't performing at our best on the pitch at the time. Things weren't great. We were struggling in all honesty.

"I'm enjoying football a lot more. As a player when you aren't getting the game time you want you can sometimes fall out of love with the game a bit. It's hard to keep yourself on track. Now I'm under a management that knows me well and I know them well.

"I had an interest in leaving and moving on, I vocalised that to the Gaffer a couple of times, and the club dealt with me well.

"At the end of the day football is a business and I had to look after my career while Carlisle had to look after their interests. We were fortunate enough to deal with the situation, get the deal over the line, and have everyone come out of it happy.

"Those conversations with managers are never easy. No matter who my manager is I want to play the best I can and train the best I can.

"Coming over here was going to suit what I needed in my career and it was one of those things that I just couldn't turn down. It doesn't make it any easier to leave though because I had some really good relationships at Carlisle.

"It's always difficult for a player to leave a club especially when you are so integrated in that club. I'd been at Carlisle for a couple of years at that point and I'd built relationships. It was always going to be difficult."

Despite some clear reservations on making the switch to the other side of the world, it appears to have worked out for Ryan, and he's clearly happy in his decision.

On how the game differs down under he said: "It was about 38 degrees when I first got here.

"For the first few weeks I struggled with it massively. I was in acclimatisation training and things like that. They had me in saunas for an hour a day, we would always train in peak weather and things like that. Now though I think I've found my feet here.

"It's a very big change though. I've not come here and scored 20 goals in 10 games. It was never going to be like that coming over here. It takes time to adapt to the environment, the different relationships on the pitch and the style of football, things like that.

"I feel like I'm starting to get that nailed on.

"It's not what I expected. One thing is my frequent flyer points are stacking up that's for sure. It's A LOT of travelling. We've Oman, India, kyrgyzstan. Here there and everywhere. Fortunately with all the travelling we've been successful in that competition and qualified for the Asian Champions League."

Ryan plays today in the A-League Grand Final.