FORMER Warners Bay junior Paul Hunter has started training with the Adelaide Crows after belatedly earning a shot at an AFL career.
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The 22-year-old ruckman missed selection in the 2014 national draft and was overlooked again this year. But the Crows picked him up as their first choice in the rookie draft on Friday.
Hunter started training at the club on Monday but, as a rookie, will play in the Crows’ feeder side in the South Australian National Football League. Adelaide can promote him to the senior list next season only as an injury replacement.
Hunter moved to Newcastle from Perth when he was seven and started playing in under 11s with the Bulldogs.
He is the first Warners Bay product to earn an AFL contract, and his former under-18s coach, Jimmy Newburn, said everyone at the club was hoping he made the Crows’ senior list.
“If he does, I’ll be trying to get to Adelaide to watch,” Newburn said on Thursday.
“He was a very determined and committed young man.”
Hunter, a former St Mary’s Gateshead and St Francis Xavier student, was also a keen surf lifesaver with Redhead, and his parents still live in the beach-side suburb.
He made his Warners Bay first-grade debut under then coach John Deitz in 2011, his final year at the club before he left to pursue his AFL dream with the Redland Bombers in the North East Australian Football League.
“In under 18s in the Black Diamond I thought I was no chance of playing AFL footy,” Hunter told the Newcastle Herald from Adelaide.
“I always wanted to play in better leagues, and my dad [Paul senior] and John told me it was achievable if I worked hard.”
The apprentice electrician was the NEAFL rising star in 2014 and the league’s leading ruckman that year.
The 200cm, 96kg giant carried that form into 2015, averaging 21 hit-outs, 10 possessions and four tackles a game along with eight goals for the season.
“I knew Adelaide only had the two early picks at the national draft and I wasn’t really in that mix,” he told the Crows website.
“I was pretty realistic that the rookie draft was more likely going to be my day. Adelaide was the club I spoke with the most, so I had a bit of an inkling. But you never have any guarantees.
“If it didn’t happen, I would’ve been pretty devastated. I was kind of preparing myself for both scenarios.”
He learned of his selection while at work.
“I set an alarm in my phone and put the tools down to follow the draft on my mobile,” Hunter said.
“Before I knew it, it was five or six picks in, so I refreshed my phone and Adelaide’s pick was next. The next three picks came up and my name was at the top. There were a few tears flowing.”
The Crows said in a statement that they had been impressed by Hunter’s fitness, given his size. He ran a 14.9 beep test at last month’s NEAFL state combine and posted the kind of time-trial numbers usually reserved for midfielders.
The Crows’ No.1 ruckman is Sam Jacobs, who has played 114 games for Adelaide. Hunter is also behind youngster Reilly O’Brien and Luke Lowden in the pecking order at the club but said he was thrilled Adelaide had offered him an opportunity.
“I’m still am a bit raw with my footy, but I think I’ve got the right attitude, and that should hold me in good stead.”
