Ross Stewart looks back on the play-offs: 'Without doubt the best atmosphere I’d ever played in'
Ross Stewart has reminisced about the League One play-offs last season and paid tribute to the atmosphere Sunderland fans created at the Stadium of Light.
The talisman is on the verge of return after his recovery from a thigh injury that has kept him out since the end of August.
Mowbray is set to ease him back into the squad after the World Cup break but, in the meantime, Stewart has spoken to the Sunderland Echo about his play-off performances.
When talking about the first leg against Sheffield Wednesday, Stewart said: "That first leg for me, as a player, for a crowd being on my side, that was without doubt the best atmosphere I’d ever played in.”
He went on to express how influential the fans were during the play-off campaign, and how beneficial the 12th man can be when it comes to crunch games like the play-offs.
"The crowd and the display before, the size of the clubs, you just felt it was massive.
“We were really good that night and the fans were a massive part of that, I think."
Stewart celebrating his brace against Rotherham earlier this season.
In his interview, Stewart has given an insight into what those crucial games are like for players and how emotions come into play.
"I just try to manage those emotions, play with no fear and just enjoy it, and I don’t know, maybe that’s why I’ve been able to make an impact."
The Scottish international is most certainly a big game player, finding the back of the net when it matters the most.
With that big-game mentality and his seemingly fearless demeanour, it is no wonder that the fans have drawn comparisons to Didier Drogba.
The confident number 9 relishes those types of occasions, making the point that they fly by so quick that you just have to enjoy them.
"The thing about these games is they just go by so fast.
"Some players get nervous but for me and my journey, I don’t really.
“I have that perspective of just, 'leave it all out there, enjoy it and just live with whatever the outcome is’.”
In the final at Wembley, Stewart recounts missing a good chance at the start of the second half and thinking to himself: "you don’t get too many of them in a game like this."
Stewart's header goes inches wide against Wycombe.
But thankfully for The Black Cats, another opportunity emerged for Stewart later that half, and he made no mistake of that one.
After Roberts and Pritchard combine a lovely move on the right hand side, Pritchard lays the ball into Stewart on the edge of the box, and the rest, as they say, is history.
"I’ve shifted it and it looks like I’m going to open my foot out on it and put it to the goalkeeper’s left, but I’ve thought that they are going to expect that so I’ve just kind of reversed it at the last moment.
"Thankfully it gets through the first set of legs, and from there you see a lot go in because the goalkeeper is wrongfooted.”
The ball nestles in the back of the net after Stewart's strike.
Stewart recalls the sheer ecstasy he felt in the moment that the final whistle blew at Wembley.
"I ran away to the corner and I had a sense of just how many fans there were just going crazy, but it’s one of those where you maybe can’t ever take it in as much as you’d like because there’s so much elation.
“But to take part in a game of that magnitude and to make an impact…”
Sunderland will be hoping that the Loch Ness Drogba can return after the World Cup break with a bag full of goals ready for the second half of the season.