OLYMPIC boxer Tony Jeffries will be among 5,000 travelling fans at the Reebok Stadium this afternoon hoping that a much-needed victory will leave Sunderland’s North-East rivals on the ropes.

With Newcastle and Middlesbrough not meeting until Monday night, a win at Bolton today would increase Sunderland’s gap over the relegation zone to seven points.

And with the Tyne-Tees derby accounting for one of the remaining four matches the Magpies and Newcastle have, it would be difficult to imagine Sunderland being caught by either.

Jeffries, a lifelong Black Cats fan who won bronze at last summer’s Beijing Games, knows all about the importance of showing passion and fighting his corner, and he is convinced Premier League survival can be achieved.

But the light-heavyweight will be relieved to know that having been invited to the club’s training ground this week, his appearance at the Academy of Light has helped to deliver the right message to the players.

“Training is always good here, but it’s refreshing to hear another voice sometimes, get some fresh ideas about fitness and preparation, how other sportsmen train,” said fullback Phil Bardsley, a boxing fan and friend of Jeffries.

“For the position we’re in as a club and what we need to get out of it, it was good listening to Jaffa talk about his desire, his will to win, because you need exactly the same to win football matches. He spoke to us and he was brilliant and hopefully we can take all that on board.

“Boxing is the ultimate individual battle. He was saying the boxing ring is the loneliest place in the world, but there are times when a football pitch can be lonely, too.

“In boxing, if you make a mistake, you’re on your own and it can be very costly, but in football you’ve got ten teammates around you and it’s about making sure you win your individual battle and then being there to help out your team-mates. That’s the kind of attitude we need.”

Sunderland chairman Niall Quinn has already indicated to Jeffries’s promoter Frank Maloney that a summer fight at the Stadium of Light could be on the cards.

And for a boxer who attracted more than 1,500 for his second professional bout last weekend, that would be an ideal scenario – but Jeffries hopes his boyhood heroes achieve their primary aim first.

“It was an absolute dream to spend a bit of time with my heroes and just talk to them about boxing and football and what it is like to be a professional sportsman,” said Jeffries, who defeated German Roy Meissner at the Crowtree Leisure Centre a week ago.

“As a lifelong Sunderland fan and someone who stood on the Roker Park terraces with my dad from the age of four, hopefully a bit of me will rub off and vice-versa. They are in a fight to keep us up and I know they will win it.”

With just one win in the last ten matches, manager Sbragia jokingly commented that he wished ‘Tony would spar with a few of them’ ahead of today’s trip to Bolton.

Such is the importance of today’s trip to Lancashire, the Sunderland manager is desperate to see some sort of reaction after the soporific display that ended in a 2-0 defeat at home to Everton.

“I wouldn’t blame anyone else for my failures to be honest,”

said Sbragia. “We’ve been looking at it, we are well prepared, but whether they’ve got the belief is another thing, they tell me they have, but it’s not quite showing that way.”