Canaries winner gave Rendell a buzz like never before

The 26-year-old striker has been criticised by some elements of Town’s faithful since signing in the summer, but came off the bench to score his 11th goal of the season as the Hatters scored a remarkable 1-0 win over their Premier League opponents at an atmospheric Carrow Road.

He said: “It’s not been fantastically easy, but you are never going to get that. You come into a big club like this and if you don’t score two, three, I don’t know...

“I can only do what I can do and it’s 11 for me now this year, joint top goalscorer along with a couple of the other boys. I feel like I’m doing OK.

“I need a little rest like maybe the gaffer said and I’ve come back and I’ve felt very sharp. So we will have to wait and see what happens in future weeks.”

On his goal, he said: “I remember Fleets (Stuart Fleetwood) sliding JJ (O’Donnell in, and I looked up and there weren’t too many Norwich defenders around their box, so I thought if I could get into the box I’ve got a good chance,

“I think it was one v one, I’m not sure who it was with, and I just knew I had to get in front of him. We’ve been working on getting in front of the front man and luckily I got in front of him enough and it ended up in the back of the net.

“I’ve never had a feeling like that, ever. As I’ve turned round I’ve just heard this big roar, I didn’t see it hit the back of the net. I just heard a big roar and I didn’t know if he’d made a worldie save or it went in, and I looked up and the ball was behind him.

“I was up straight away and just wheeled away with the boys.”

It was just reward for the super sub who made a real impact in the last 15 minutes.

“I haven’t scored too many coming on, I can’t remember many in my career – none as important as that,” he said.

“You always have to be ready in this game because you know that it’s going to be a tough afternoon for 11 players to play the whole 90 minutes against a quality side like Norwich.

“The gaffer turned round and said get ready and you just know you have to go and be ready. Luckily I was and came up with a goal.

“You sit there and you would rather be out there. The gaffer picks the team and I think he picked the right team to start off with and obviously made the right subs at the right time.

“It was a great atmosphere and obviously you don’t want to let anyone down when you come on because the boys have done fantastic for 75 minutes and if you come on and let somebody down then you’re going to feel really bad about yourself, not just for the last 15 minutes but you go in there and you see everyone.

“It was important to be switched on, warmed up right and go out there with the right attitude.

“We had the right gameplan and everyone deserved it. The fans have been fantastic for us.”

The fact that all three substitutes combined for the winner shows both the value of Town’s squad and having four frontline strikers according to Rendell.

He continued: “It’s important. The 11 boys that went out there I thought were fantastic to start the game, and the whole game everyone was fantastic. But we always knew the subs were going to be important as well because you can never go through a game like that and all of you play 90 minutes.

“So the subs were going to be important and luckily all three of us were involved in the goal and it was just nice it went in.

“Everyone loves a bit of competition. You’d rather play than not, but you do kind of get complacent when you play and you’ve go no-one chasing you for your place.

“At this club we’ve got four of the best strikers in the league, no doubt about that and the way we’re playing now, 4-4-2, there’s going to be two people missing out, but we’ve come to accept that.

“I think we all respect each other. The other boys were fantastic with me, coming up saying you’ll get back in, you’ll get back in.

“It’s like that throughout the team. When (Jon) Shawy wasn’t playing, or Fleets has not been playing, we’ve all been fantastic with each other. We’re a good group, we look after each other and I think it proves that when we play as a team.”

It was all the better for Rendell whose friends and family were watching on. He added: “I had a few. My mum and dad were here, a few of my friends came up so it was nice to get on eventually and put one away.”

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