Wolves 3 Middlesbrough 2 - Match analysis and pictures

No-one in their right mind could have imagined it would be Stephen Hunt.

But in an age when the world's greatest team has shown the game's little men can still exert big influences, Hunt and his pipe-cleaner legs have injected a burst of furious energy into his floundering club side – and with it renewed hope of avoiding a second successive relegation.

Fresh from his crisis-saving service in the turnaround victory over Bristol City, Hunt was at it again against Middlesbrough, carving out the first goal in a game of endless enjoyment and once more applying the spark that has energised Dean Saunders's regime in the nick of time.

Plagued by injuries, his game was never going to be precise enough to engage former manager Stale Solbakken who wrote the little Irishman out of his script for a Molineux re-build subsequently shelved.

But one man's poison is another man's meat. Hunt's engaging positivity and unyielding spirit identify him very much as a Saunders type of player and the manager has been rewarded handsomely for his faith.

In a game so rich in old-fashioned entertainment it could have been played on vinyl, Wolves went spinning to 45 points with a 3-2 victory that after so many scowls at last left Molineux smiling.

The impact of the team's recent up-turn in results has unfortunately not been enough to take them clear of the present danger. But it has concertinaed the bottom third of the Championship so effectively any number of rivals have been trapped in the folds.

Crucially, confidence and winning are no longer strangers to the squad battered by the decline of the last couple of years. While teams above have begun to falter at just the wrong time, Wolves have started to find their feet at just the right moment.

A path to safety is still unclear because the quality remains less than convincing. Wolves were playing against a Tony Mowbray team and that meant an afternoon of ridiculously open football which was lapped up by the galleries.

That both teams looked capable of scoring and conceding almost within the same instant made for great fun but the realists will know more gruelling battles lie ahead.

But where there is Hunt there is hope and Kevin Doyle scoring a winner for the second match running suggests another trusted old hand is re-gathering his game.

This contest was one that gambled all on attack and gave us everything – a goal of the season contender from Bjorn Sigurdarson, a goal that was but wasn't and any number of goals that should have been but weren't.

And all of it kicked off by the dynamic little burst from Hunt in the 17th minute which saw him wriggle around the outside of Justin Hoyte before whipping in his trademark – the 'un-defendable' cross.

It gave Stephen McManus a choice to either turn it into his own net or let Sylvan Ebanks-Blake do it instead; he chose the former.

Hunt's dance of delight in front of the South Bank carried so many messages but most of all captured perfectly the Irishman's infectious excitement and zeal for the game. A month after being ridiculed by the gathering behind that goal, he is now very much the symbol of renewed life.

Not that this opening goal was ever going to be the decisive moment in a game which grew more extraordinary by the minute.

Mowbray's team were constantly fraying the nerves of a straining and uncertain Wolves defence on counter attacks propelled by the lightning pace of Mustapha Carayol testing the energy levels of Matt Doherty.

But it was no surprise to see Boro' swiftly level even if they didn't actually score. In one of any number of penalty-area bagatelles, a lino's flag ruled a Grant Leadbitter shot which cannoned down from the bar had crossed the line. Oh no it hadn't, said the replays later.

Backwards and forwards went the teams exchanging chances and spills and thrills and errors and near misses and... well, just about everything a football match can offer including an absolute peach of a goal from Sigurdarson.

Three minutes into the second-half, he cleverly speared a startled Boro' defence in accepting an Ebanks-Blake back-heel before rounding Jason Steele to score.

Leadbitter's second strike, this time from range, levelled the game again before Doyle's finale – and the quality of his header from a Roger Johnson flick-on should not be under-estimated.

He's coming to life, so are Wolves. And that little perisher with the floppy hair and skinny legs has had much to do with it.

Martin Swain