‘It was a massive win’, says Bale after hard-fought win over Belarus

striker

Gareth Bale

scored a hat trick, including a dramatic injury-time winner, as

Wales

beat

Belarus

3-2 in a World Cup qualifying game.

This was Wales' second victory in three games in Group E and moved them up to third, one point behind the second-placed

Czech Republic

with a game in hand.

The victory was achieved with a backdrop of injuries, visa issues, suspensions, and Covid-19 which had left interim manager Rob Page without up to 11 players that would have made the squad.

"It was a massive win,"

Bale told 

.

"Every game counts and these kinds of games when you are expected to win are probably the hardest.

"Everything was against us, it wasn't a good first half whatsoever, but I thought in the second half we really changed that and got on the front foot.

"I thought Mark Harris had a big impact on the game and it was like Andorra in the first qualifier for Euro 2016, getting that goal will hopefully keep our momentum going and hopefully we can keep that into the next game.

"Qualification is alive, we lost to a very good Belgium team but it is important we win every other game. I know the performance and we all know the performance wasn't good enough in the first half, we corrected it more in the second half, we bounced back and showed character to get the result.

"In the back of my mind I was thinking about the missed penalty in the Euros, but it was great to score two tonight, because they were important goals.

"The winner, it was a last-gasp effort, I tried to hook it in and I was ecstatic as I knew it was right into the last few seconds.

"Everything hasn't gone for us in terms of the travel or the pitch, but it is what it is, thankfully we have got the three points and we can get out of here."

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