THE last 12 months might not have gone as planned, but Darlington fighter Stuart Hall is confident 2017 will provide him with one more shot at a return to the World stage.

Hall failed to reclaim his IBF World Bantamweight title when he suffered a hugely controversial defeat to long-term adversary Lee Haskins in September. Most neutral observers felt the North-Easterner had done enough to win back his belt, but the judges awarded Haskins a unanimous points decision despite Hall having dominated the second half of the fight.

Hall will turn 37 in February, and having become only the second North-East fighter in history to claim a world title when he out-fought Vusi Malinga in December 2013, few would begrudge him if he opted to call it a day.

However, he is still smarting from the manner of his defeat to Haskins, and having returned to light gym work with his former trainer, Johnny Harrison, in the last few weeks, he is targeting a return to the ring in February.

“I couldn’t leave it like this,” said Hall, who has won 20 of his 27 bouts as a professional. “I still can’t get to sleep some nights because I’m constantly thinking about my last fight and tossing and turning things over in my mind.

“I’ve watched the fight back twice now, and I’m absolutely convinced I won by two rounds. I won the majority of the rounds in the back half of the fight, and he wasn’t far enough ahead of me in the first half for that not to have made a difference. Football is a game of two halves, and if Man United are winning 1-0 at half-time but then let in two goals in the second half, they still get beat.

“It hurts, and it’s something I feel I have to put right. I haven’t put so much into my boxing career to throw in the towel now and accept that I’m bowing out after a fight like that.

“I know I’ve still got one big fight in me. I’m back doing a bit of work now, and then I’ll be heading back down to Birmingham after Christmas to really step things up again. I’m still with Eddie Hearn, and he’s talking about getting going again in February. That will do for me.”

With Haskins having been forced to withdraw from a planned defence of his World title against Japan’s Shohei Omori because of injury, there is an outside chance the IBF could review Hall’s fight and order a rematch sometime in the New Year.

More likely is that Hall will have to claim a couple of quick victories in order to secure an eliminator contest that could pave the way for what would be a sixth World-title fight.

February’s contest will largely be to blow away the cobwebs, but having taken on a number of low-key fights after losing to Randy Caballero in 2014, Hall will not be going down the same route again.

“I can’t be messing about taking on six or eight-rounders at this stage in my career,” he said. “I’m fighting on because I believe I can still succeed on the biggest stage, not because I need the money or want to be trudging around fighting nobodies.

“I might have an eight or ten-rounder in February, just to get back into things, but after that I’ll be looking to get an eliminator or something like that as quickly as I can. Anyone who watched the Haskins fight knows what I can still do.”

That said, however, if Hall is afforded another World-title shot, he will approach things differently to his last outing at the O2.

His measured performance against Haskins represented a marked change from the barnstorming displays that characterised the start of his career, and while he will not be putting himself in a situation where he could repeatedly get hit, he is ready to return to the ‘old Stuart Hall’.

“Maybe I’ve been over-thinking things a bit,” he said. “When you get to a certain level, there’s so much hype and so much talk about thinking and tactics, that you maybe forget what got you there in the first place.

“I just have to remember what my strengths are. From now on, I’ll be going into the ring and fighting in the way that Stuey Hall used to fight. It’ll be a case of ‘Get in there and beat them up’. That used to be my style, and I’ve maybe lost a bit of something by trying to change it.”

Hall was in the ring at the MEN Arena last weekend as his former training partner, Kalid Yafai, beat Luis Concepcion to claim the vacant WBA World Super Flyweight title.

Yafai was one of Hall’s sparring partners prior to his defeat to Haskins, and the pair will once again trade blows when Hall returns to his Birmingham base at the start of next month.

“It was fantastic seeing Kal win his world title – he boxed so well and won every round,” said Hall. “He’s a great lad, and he deserves all the success he’s getting. We had some fantastic sparring earlier this year, and I’m sure it’ll be even better now he’s a World champion.

“He said to me after the fight, ‘We should both be finishing the year as World champions’. I just said to him, ‘Don’t worry mate – next year we will be’.”