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| defoe handled his ball |
shooting boots by playing a role in his three goals -
as well as Adam Johnson's first international strike -
as England shook off their World Cup headache
with the perfect start to their Euro 2012 qualifying
campaign at Wembley.
Speaking after the match, Defoe hailed Rooney's
unselfishness and talked up their belatedly
blooming combination: "It's always nice when you
play with a partner and they want you to score the
third goal. When I was on the second, he said to
me, 'Keep going and you'll get the hat-trick'. When
I did, he was the first one to come over. It's great -
what a feeling. It's a fantastic feeling, to score for
your country, to score a hat-trick and to win the
game.
"I've always said sometimes it takes time to get
things working. In training, we played together all
week and it's been very good. Tonight, he was
involved in all my goals - so it was brilliant.''
Defoe hobbled off after completing his hat-trick but
he dismissed any fears of an injury that would rule
him out of Tuesday night's qualifier in Switzerland.
The knock was to his ankle, not the knee he was
set to have an operation on during the week before
changing his mind at the last minute.
He said: "I'm glad I didn't have it now! It's been a
little bit sore to be honest but I've done a lot of
work in the gym - a lot of core work - to try to
improve it and tonight I didn't get a reaction.''
Defoe was also keeping his fingers crossed for
Spurs team-mate Michael Dawson, who suffered a
freak injury reminscent of Michael Owen's at the
2006 World Cup when his left leg collapsed
underneath him.
"He's on crutches at the minute,'' Defoe said.
"Hopefully, it's not his knee. Maybe it's his ankle. It
looked like he was in a lot of pain. I just hope he's
all right.''
England's dismal World Cup campaign has seen
them come under fire from all quarters and there
were plenty of empty seats at Wembley on Friday
night. Defoe said he hoped the win would help
them silence their critics but accepted there was still
work to do to win over the fans.
"You don't want to take your foot off the gas and
get complacent. You want to keep it going and
make sure you play like that in the next game.''
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