Hunt: I get angry but I’d never do a Tevez

HAVING impressed in the summer games which concluded with that memorable defeat of Italy in Liege, Stephen Hunt was dismayed to find himself back on the bench again when Ireland returned to the serious business of Euro qualification against Slovakia in September.

It’s a recurring problem with which the Wolves winger has had to come to terms throughout an international career which, in recent times, has invariably seen him down the pecking order behind the likes of Damien Duff, Aiden McGeady and Liam Lawrence.

“You do get angry,” said Hunt. “I saw a rugby player who wasn’t picked say yesterday that he was angry for a few hours. It’s a team game and, to be fair, I always support the player in ahead of me because I know what it’s like. You have to do a good job for the team. But I would probably be guilty of being too good to the team rather than concentrating on myself on certain occasions. Maybe to a certain degree at Wolves. Because if you’re doing your job then you’re helping the team.”

Which isn’t to say that Stephen Hunt would ever contemplate doing a Carlos Tevez — even if he does have some instinctive sympathy for the man in the substitute’s role.

“It’s a Champions League game and it’s a hell of a stadium and it’s Bayern Munich and you can get frustrated but at the same time I think I’d be coming on as quick as you can,” he said.

“As a sub you can have an impact and you can help your team-mates.”

Hunt admits that he hasn’t been slow to vent his own frustration at club level, once confronting Steve Coppell about his omission from the Reading team. And it worked too — he was back in the following week and then retained his place.

He recalls: “A guy got injured on the Friday and I had been patient for about a year and the first thing I did when the whistle blew, I was straight over to him and said ‘don’t even think about playing anyone else’. I knew him long enough to be able to go and say it.”

Hunt expressed a passionate desire to play to Giovanni Trapattoni on a couple of occasions but, after the disappointment of missing out against Slovakia, it was to Marco Tardelli that he confided his disappointment.

“I remember saying to Marco, ‘listen, I’m a bit disappointed I’m not playing, I thought I did well enough’. What he said to me will remain private. But I have belief in them and to a certain degree they have belief in me. Sometimes they have tactics for a game where they might want to play Aido, Duffer, Liam or Seamus. Then you accept it. The important thing is to get it off your chest and then get on with it.”

Does he reject the view of himself as a meat-and-drink type of player?

“I have played four or five years in the Premier League,” he pointed out. “I know what I have and I stick to principles of being good and direct. I don’t have five step-overs, I don’t have a trick to a degree. But I know what I have in terms of getting something positive and eventually I’ll go past someone and when that happens, hopefully, I’ll set up a goal. My delivery is most important to me. I know what kind of player I am. It has got me to where I am today and I am not going to stop doing it. I’m not going to turn into Messi now, am I? But what I know is that I will be effective and I will have a good influence on the team.’’

And while we’re waiting to see if Trap opts to put Stephen Hunt out of his misery at some point on Friday against Andorra, one final question about the player’s relationship with the manager: do they, perchance, communicate by text?

“Sometimes. When he texts me I text him back. I don’t text him, like ‘Ah, how are you doing?’ That wouldn’t be a wise thing to do. ‘What are you up to, like?’ ‘Just in Milan here, chilling, thanks’.”

Exit Stephen Hunt with a familiar smile on his face, a man who can’t stay angry for too long.