Stephen Hunt delighted to avoid relegation hat-trick
Monday 23rd May 2011, 1:32PM BST.
Wolves hero Stephen Hunt today revealed his £40m goal came on “the most stressful day of my life”.
The £3m winger’s goal — Wolves’ second in yesterday’s 3-2 defeat against Blackburn — helped to clinch the club’s third successive season in the Premier League on a day of intense drama up and down the country.
But the 29-year-old said it came at a cost as he admitted Wolves had to go for goals to stay up.
“It was the most stressful day of my football career,” said Hunt, whose strike was his third for Wolves.
“There was only one way to do it and that was to score a few goals and luckily, Blackburn took their foot off the gas. They could’ve had two keepers in there and they wouldn’t have saved my goal. I’m enjoying the moment and I thank God we did it — it was in the lap of the gods — but we got those vital couple of goals in the second half.
“We needed one more goal and being mentally strong was the key, I think.”
For Hunt, survival meant he avoided a third relegation after going down with Reading and Hull.
“I said three weeks ago that I needed to have a short-term impact to help the players who have played all season because we’d had a few defeats and they needed to lift themselves again,” he added. “Luckily I’ve had that short-term impact but credit to my team-mates. I was on for a hat-trick of relegations and it looked doomed again at half-time. But we managed to stick in there and were mentally strong and got back in the game.
“At half-time we still knew that one or two goals might make a difference and then we knew towards the end that one might do it.”
Hunt said his inspiration was Leinster’s amazing comeback to win the Heineken Cup on Saturday, after they recovered from being 22-6 down at half-time to beat Northampton 33-22.
“I recalled seeing Leinster in the rugby on Saturday, and they produced a magical moment,” he said.
“I looked to Johnny Sexton (who scored 28 of Leinster’s points) as my inspiration. It kept me going and luckily I put one in the top stanchion.”
UK Sport
Latest Blog — A week is a long time in football
This time last week we were staring down the barrel, third from bottom with a worse record than at the same stage last year, writes Saddlers blogger Mark Jones.
Saddlers Blog
Business Awards
Book a Business Awards table
Join our celebrations of the region's best in business on Thursday March 22 - book your table now
Lifestyle
Interactive Dining Out map
Hundreds of reviews by the Express & Star and Shropshire Star's teams to help you decide where to eat.
entertainment
All the film reviews
Before you plan a trip to the pictures, get our critics' verdicts on all the latest movie releases
OUR NEW APP
Get the new E&S app
Download the Express & Star’s new app to your iPad or iPhone to get one week of access to our digital newspapers absolutely FREE.
expressandstar.com
Popular sections
Useful links
