Following his dream debut, Noel Hunt takes up the role of secret agent for Ipswich Town this weekend.

The 31-year-old forward – who stepped off the bench to score a dramatic 95th minute winner at Charlton last Saturday – is ineligible to play against his parent club Leeds United at Portman Road.

He has no mixed loyalties though, the Irish loanee desperate to end his frustrating 18-month spell with the Yorkshire club and earn a longer-term deal with Mick McCarthy’s men in the New Year.

“It’s a bit of a strange one for me,” admitted Hunt, who missed a lot of football through injury during his debut campaign at Elland Road and has been restricted largely to Under-21 games for them this season.

“They are still my club, but it’s not really worked out for me there and now I’m loving being here and really want to stay.”

Asked if that means he’ll be passing on all the inside information he can to the Blues’ management team, ahead of the visit of Neil Redfearn’s side, he laughed: “I know a lot about their team, so we’ll see what happens!”

Second-place Town could go top of the Championship table with a win, while 15th-place Leeds – whose owner Massimo Cellino failed the Football League’s ‘fit and proper person’ test earlier this week – are looking to build on their impressive 2-0 win over leaders Derby last weekend.

“Leeds are a great club who have great fans that are passionate about their football,” said Hunt. “Obviously it’s been frustrating times for them and sometimes it has boiled over. They have good players and good people though and I wish them all the best.

“Straight after the game on Saturday I got five or six texts from the lads back there who were buzzing for me. That was nice.”

He continued: “I’ve just tried to keep doing the right things for the right people. I had a lot of nice comments off people when I left there last week saying ‘good luck, you’re one of the best pros we’ve seen’.”