Stephen: we’re still in the Hunt

STEPHEN HUNT could only chuckle when asked if Italy had stolen a march on the Irish with their raiding of the spoils in Montenegro.

As shown by his opening burst at impressive Bulgarian full back Stanislav Manolev, the Reading winger is not slow about imposing himself on the opposition and, on Saturday night, he pledged to pack the same attitude for the trip to the south of Italy.

But he did admit that the performance went a little flat after Dunne’s opener.

“That sometimes happens with an early goal,” said Hunt. “It’s difficult to keep it going. We should have kept pressing but we stood back a little bit. They passed the ball around but they didn’t hurt us.

“We’re a little bit disappointed with the second half. They controlled the game in terms of possession but didn’t have many chances. But they nicked a goal and we didn’t really react after that. We’ll go to Italy now and look for the win and see what happens.”

Is it a setback heading to Bari?

“A setback? It was more important that we didn’t lose than anything else. We should have won the game, we didn’t, what can we do now? It’s gone. To keep the campaign on track it would be nice to get a result in Bari. We’re going there to win the game. We hope and think we can beat Italy so we look forward to it.”

Room for improvement?

“Yes and no, to be honest. We obviously got off to a flying start. They had one or two shots and that was it. That was obvious to everyone. They controlled the possession which was a little bit disappointing. They moved the ball well.”

He laughed off suggestions that Italy’s sauntering 2-0 win may return them to the reality that second place might be the most that can be realistically expected from their Group 8 campaign.

“You’re joking me aren’t ya? It’s halfway through the campaign. I know they’ve gone ahead tonight and they’re at home (on Wednesday) but don’t forget, they have to come to our place. We’ll go there solid and look to get the win and we’ll be right back on track then, that’s for sure.”