Painful memory proves mum’s the word for returning Royal Hunt

NOEL HUNT might have had his bubble burst in Bari last April when he claimed Ireland’s equalising goal against Italy but then saw it correctly attributed to Robbie Keane.

But the discomfort of that was nothing compared to the pain he would endure at season’s end when, already nursing an injury, the Waterford man suffered a burst appendix.

“I came home for the weekend of the play-offs because I broke a bone in my foot,” explains the Reading striker.