Hooper’s the hero as Owls clinch play-off place

Gary Hooper took the goalscoring plaudits as Wednesday finally sealed our place in the Championship play-offs with an emphatic 3-0 win over Cardiff.

We went into the game knowing we only needed a draw to seal the place and the Welsh visitors, the only side who could beat us to the final play-off position, rarely looked like doing so.

Hooper fired us in front with an excellent opportunist effort on 64 minutes, saw his cross deflected into his own net by Lee Peltier 11 minutes later and completed an excellent afternoon in injury time when he lobbed keeper David Marshall.

It was no less than Wednesday deserved after, for the first time in weeks, we began a game at Hillsborough in impressive and aggressive manner.

Hooper was unlucky to see a long-ranger come back off the woodwork but we failed to turn the domination into goals, with Cardiff gaining in confidence as the first half progressed.

However, we upped the tempo again after the break and Hooper was the man with the finishing touch, much to the delight of the vast majority of the near 32,000 crowd and the play-off hopes finally became a reality.

 

 

Leave a Reply