Jeff: I can win the fans back

Mar 29 2008 by Stuart Rayner, The Journal

He started the season struggling for fitness and booed by his unforgiving fans, but Jeff Hutchins plans to end his season on a high. Stuart Rayner reports.

AS a sportsman, few things are more humiliating than being booed by your own supporters, but Jeff Hutchins has managed it. When the Vipers forward was named man-of-the-match in a game he should not have been playing in, the Newcastle Arena supporters expressed their thanks by jeering as he collected his award.

With the play-offs starting this weekend and his long-standing groin problem belatedly operated on, redemption is at hand and Hutchins is determined to finally win over the fans.

The Hutchins who takes on Belfast Giants in Dundalk in tonight’s play-off quarter-final first leg will be unrecognisable from the man who limped and winced through the first half of the season.

Since returning from surgery in January, the 29-year-old has a respectable goal return of nine from 18 games. But while the damage to his body has been repaired, his mental wounds are still fresh.

The Canadian is clearly still upset and frustrated the fans did not know the reasons behind his poor performances.

“I’ve had a tough year, it’s been pretty hard on me,” he admits. “I was brought in to score goals. I didn’t get 30 (he managed 16) but from the eighth game on, my groin was shot. I had to wait on the NHS for almost eight weeks to see the doctors I wanted. Fans don’t realise that. They’re asking, ‘Why is he playing so bad?’ but you don’t want to let the team down and they don’t want to bring in another guy because it costs so much.

“I ended up having surgery and it’s hard to come back from right away. Most people would just pack it in and come back next year but I want to win.”

It was 18 games between Hutchins injuring his groin and going under the knife. It still rankles that he was unable to explain to the fans. “That’s kind of weird because everybody in the game knows anyway,” he admits. “It’s quite a tight-knit community.

“The fans are pretty impatient in Newcastle and if things aren’t going right they let you know. If one gets on you, they all jump on the bandwagon and they don’t even know why half the time.

“But I’m starting to hit my stride at probably the best time. The last 13 games I think I’m playing pretty well, I’ve got eight goals, which is pretty good. I want to finish on a high and put the problems with the fans to rest.

“Everyone has their opinions. I have my opinions about Newcastle United, it’s just people that are ill-informed. It was a little disheartening when you get man-of-the-match and get booed but I’m a professional and I sleep at night knowing that.

“The people who are slagging you don’t come to talk to you, or if they do, they don’t slag you off to your face so you never know who is talking. When we do team things with fans I’m thinking every time someone comes up to me, ‘Were you the one who said that?’ If you have a bad game and I’m out for dinner and someone sees me having a beer with it, the next thing you know I’ve been out all night. But the only person I need to worry about is the boss. Rob (Wilson, the coach) put a lot of faith in me and I am disappointed I couldn’t be the Colin Shields (the regular season’s top scorer) this year. I had a really good season last year and got 40 goals.”

To reach finals weekend, the Vipers must beat Belfast home and away in the next two days. But Hutchins believes his former team-mates are on the kind of low he was before Christmas.

“They have a very offensive team but haven’t been playing very well recently so it will be important for us to get on them and be a little bit physical with them,” he says. “They’re going to try and play run-and-gun.

“We can’t get into that because we simply can’t match the offence they can produce.

“They’ve had a really rough season going from last to first winning 16 in a row, to losing their last six out of 10 so if we go at them we might make them not want to play any more and say, ‘Ah, let them have it’.”

If they succeed, a few of his former detractors might be grateful Hutchins did not throw the towel in so easily.

Tomorrow’s game at Newcastle Arena is a 5.30pm face-off.