In the hunt

Stephen Hunt is determined to make his mark in America and beyond.

The Reading midfielder spoke to soccer correspondent, Liam Mackey WITH so many players withdrawn from Ireland’s trip to America, it’s easy for folk to scoff at what they see as the entirely dubious virtue of an end-of-season tour for jaded professionals. But Stephen Hunt isn’t one of them. For the 25-year-old Reading man, it’s all about catching up on lost time at international level and seizing the chance to stake a future claim.

“I haven’t earned the right really, have I? I haven’t had a start,” says the player whose three appearances to date for his country have come off the bench. “So it’s important I come over here to America and impress. It was like with Bobby Convey at Reading — I got in because he was injured. Now, Damien Duff is injured, unfortunately, but I’ve got to take my chance and get in the team and try and establish myself for the European Championships. You can play in pre-season friendlies and end-of-season tours but, when it comes to the crunch, you want to be there and playing. That’s why I want to impress in these games.”

Lest anyone remain in any doubt about Hunt’s determination, the player confirms that he has arrived in the US carrying a knock to his favoured left foot which has been bothering him since March and which has even seen him practicing with his right in training in a bid to protect it.

“I’ve had the knock since probably the week before the Wales game,” he explains. “I got a bruised ankle from being kicked against Portsmouth, and it hasn’t really healed up. At the same time, I’ve played to the end of the season with it and I didn’t think it would be right not to play these two games. I’ve got the physio to look at it here, and the physio at Reading was keen for me to play as well. It’ll survive New York and Boston and it can heal then when I go to the south of France for my holidays.”

Competition for places in the Irish team also acts as a spur.

“I’ve only got three caps for substitute appearances and I’ve played over 25 games starting for Reading. I ain’t going to be remembered for that. I probably won’t be remembered for this American tour either but if it helps me get into a team that wins the rest of the games in the qualifiers, then that can get you recognition for years to come.”

After impressing when coming off the bench against Wales, Hunt admits he was disappointed he didn’t get a start at Croke Park three days later.

“If I said no then I’d be a liar. I was gutted I didn’t start the Slovakia game but, as a manager, that’s the way you want to have your players, I suppose. There are some good players in front of me but I’ll keep pushing and pushing until I do get in. Damien Duff has played in World Cups so you’ve got to respect that. At the same time if I’m coming into his position I’m gonna play my way. It won’t be the same way Damien Duff plays but hopefully it will be effective and I can get on the end of some crosses, get in the box and score some goals.”

The tag of “impact sub”, though entirely appropriate to Hunt’s energising interventions in the two wins at Croker, is not one he wants to have continually dangling around his neck.

“I had it at Reading the year before last — when I think I came on in every single game in the Championship — and it did actually hinder me for a while,” he admits. “But for your country you’ll do what it takes and try to get as many caps as you can. You need a bit of luck. It was lucky on my part, unlucky for him (Convey). That’s the way the game is. I think that for the first seven or eight games of the season I was finding my feet getting used to the pace but probably since January I’ve taken to it better. I’m still learning even though I’m 25 and I want to improve.”

Stephen Hunt’s season may have ended on a high for both club and country but the accidental collision which fractured the skull of Chelsea ‘keeper Petr Cech in Hunt’s first full game in the Premiership posed an early and severe challenge to the player’s character. Unforgivably, Jose Mourinho attributed malice aforethought to Hunt’s challenge and the ensuing media firestorm took a long time to die down. Indeed, as the player himself is quick to note, it’s an incident never far away when a notebook or tape recorder is produced.

“I’ve had a bet on how many questions it would take before I was asked about Cech — and I lost,” he says dryly.

So how difficult was the whole incident and its lurid fall-out for Hunt? “I think the club did well for me,” he reflects.

“They kept me out of the press for the next couple of weeks and they picked and chose who would interview me. It was obviously harder for Petr Cech because he had an awful lot to go through. I see him wearing that headgear all the time and I wouldn’t dare laugh at it, I wouldn’t dare smile at it. It was disappointing that it was so serious. I was strong enough to deal with it but I couldn’t afford to allow it to get to me. I’d only started one Premiership game and I had to be selfish once I knew that Petr Cech was okay, because that was the most important thing.

“But it did affect me to the extent that the manager felt it was right to leave my out for the Portsmouth game. And then the Chelsea game — for the simple fact that he didn’t want to get the noise levels up at Chelsea. And then, because the boys played so well, I didn’t play three days later against Man United. But since then I’ve probably got stronger as a person and haven’t looked back. If you were weak-minded then I’d say you probably could struggle with the pressure but I couldn’t afford to. I’d waited long enough to get to where I wanted to get. Probably the easy part is getting there; the hard part is staying there.”

Did Mourinho ever try to make amends? “He gave me a kind of a quick handshake in the tunnel (before the Chelsea game, on Stephen’s Day),” he reveals. “I suppose our manager would have been talking to him about me and about the situation and hopefully talked sense to him in terms of how I didn’t mean to do it.”

Reading boss Steve Coppell has just been voted the Premiership manager of the year by his fellow professionals and Stephen Hunt makes it clear that the gaffer gets his vote too.

“He’s probably a good candidate for the England job in a few years,” he predicts. “He plays 4-4-2 which is the English style and he’s well-educated which you probably need to be in that job because there is so much to be aware of. I actually thought he had a good chance of getting the Ireland job before our manager got it. He’s spot-on although he likes a quiet life and that might go against him.”

A down to earth character, as candid as he is good-humoured, Hunt confesses that, after taking the long route to life in top-flight football, he is finally beginning to reap some of the material rewards.

“I’ve bought a new house and a new car — a Porsche 911,” he reveals. And then, hesitating only slightly, he adds with a sheepish grin: “Which I was caught speeding in at 103 km an hour in a 60km zone outside Dungarvan last week. And I was only home two days.”

But he’s just as quick to clarify there are more important things on the agenda than a nice pad or flash motor.

“It’s not the car or the house I want — it’s the caps,” he says. “It’s about playing for your country. I’ve sat on many a doorstep of a pub looking at the World Cup in Japan and things like that, hoping that one day I would make it. Probably the only person who really believed was myself. Other people maybe thought: not a chance. But I love it. I love the Premiership and the style of it so hopefully I can continue to play there. And I want to get as many caps as I can.”