Jayden Hunt (born 3 April 1995) is a professional

Australian rules football Australian football, also called Australian rules football or Aussie rules, or more simply football or footy, is a contact sport played between two teams of 18 players on an oval field, often a modified cricket ground. Points are scored by k ...

er playing for the

West Coast Eagles The West Coast Eagles are a professional Australian rules football club based in Perth, Western Australia. The club was founded in 1986 as one of two expansion teams in the Australian Football League (AFL), then known as the Victorian Football L ...

in the

Australian Football League The Australian Football League (AFL) is the only fully professional sports, professional competition of Australian rules football. Through the AFL Commission, the AFL also serves as the sport's governing body and is responsible for controlling ...

(AFL), having previously played for the

Melbourne Football Club The Melbourne Football Club, nicknamed the Demons, is a professional Australian rules football club that competes in the Australian Football League (AFL), the sport's elite competition. It is based in Melbourne, Victoria, and plays its home g ...

. A defender, tall and weighing , Hunt plays primarily on the

half-back flank In the sport of Australian rules football, the half-back line refers to the positions of the 3 players on the field that occupy the centre half-back and left and right half-back flank positions. Centre half-back The role of the centre half-back ...

with the ability to also play on the

wing A wing is a type of fin that produces lift while moving through air or some other fluid. Accordingly, wings have streamlined cross-sections that are subject to aerodynamic forces and act as airfoils. A wing's aerodynamic efficiency is e ...

. He was born into an Australian rules football family with both his great-uncle and uncle playing in the Victorian Football League (now the Australian Football League). He played his final junior football year in school sports and did not play any football at under-18 level. Despite this, he was recruited by the Melbourne Football Club with the fifty-seventh selection in the 2013 AFL draft. After persistent injuries in his first two years, he made his AFL debut during the 2016 season.

Early life

Hunt was born into a football family with his great uncle,

Harold Rumney Harold Waldmere Rumney (16 May 1907 – 16 November 1987) was an Australian rules footballer. Rumney was rejected by Carlton Football Club after 15 games in two seasons and transferred to Collingwood Football Club. His arrival at Collingwood w ...

, playing 186 games in the

Victorian Football League The Victorian Football League (VFL) is an Australian rules football league in Australia serving as one of the second-tier regional semi-professional competitions which sit underneath the fully professional Australian Football League (AFL). It ...

(now the Australian Football League) for the

Collingwood Football Club The Collingwood Football Club, nicknamed the Magpies or colloquially the Pies, is a professional Australian rules football club based in Melbourne that competes in the Australian Football League (AFL), the sport's elite competition. The club ...

and

Carlton Football Club The Carlton Football Club, nicknamed the Blues, is a professional Australian rules football club that competes in the Australian Football League (AFL), the sport's top professional competition. Founded in 1864 in Carlton, an inner suburb of Me ...

, including four premierships with Collingwood between 1927 and 1930; and his uncle, Andrew Moir, played 73 matches for the

from 1977–1981. He played under 16 level football with the

Hampton Rovers Football Club The Hampton Rovers Amateur Football Club was founded in 1929 and is located in Melbourne, Australia. The club competes in the Victorian Amateur Football Association and the South Metro Junior Football League and has both men's and women's ...

in 2011 before playing school football with

Brighton Grammar School , motto_translation = Let us keep pursuing better things , city = Brighton , state = Victoria , zipcode = 3186 , country = Australia , coordinates ...

. Playing in the

Associated Public Schools of Victoria The Associated Public Schools of Victoria (APS) are a group of eleven independent schools in Victoria, Australia, similar to the Athletic Association of the Great Public Schools of New South Wales in New South Wales and the Public Schools Asso ...

(APS) competition during his draft year, he did not play in the

TAC Cup The NAB League Boys (also referred to as simply the NAB League and formerly known as the TAC Cup) is an under-19 Australian rules football representative competition held in Australia. It is based on geographic regions throughout country Vict ...

or under 18 championships that year. His only representative match for the year was the APS vs.

Associated Grammar Schools of Victoria The Associated Grammar Schools of Victoria (AGSV) is a sporting association of nine independent schools in Victoria, Australia, formed in 1920. The AGSV provides interschool sporting competitions between the nine member schools in a range of sp ...

(AGSV) match.

AFL career

Playing just the one representative match for the year, Hunt was drafted by the

with their third selection and fifty-seventh overall in the 2013 national draft, he was the only player in the draft to not play any football at under 18-level. He was labelled as the draft smoky and ''

Herald Sun The ''Herald Sun'' is a conservative daily tabloid newspaper based in Melbourne, Australia, published by The Herald and Weekly Times, a subsidiary of News Corp Australia, itself a subsidiary of the Murdoch owned News Corp. The ''Herald ...

'' journalist, Sam Landsberger, noted he was "plucked from relative obscurity". After playing the first six matches in the

(VFL) for Melbourne's affiliate team, the

Casey Scorpions The Casey Football Club, nicknamed the "Demons" and formerly the "Scorpions", is an Australian rules football club based in Cranbourne East, Victoria. The club, which was known until 2005 as the Springvale Football Club and the Casey Scorpions ( ...

in 2014, he was sidelined for over a year after suffering from a back injury and a broken jaw which he injured in June 2015. He returned to the VFL in July and played the remainder of the season including the elimination final loss against . Hunt had his first uninterrupted pre-season in the lead-up to the 2016 season and played the first two matches of the

NAB Challenge In the Australian Football League (AFL), previously the Victorian Football League (VFL), the pre-season competition, known during its history by a variety of sponsored names and most recently as the NAB Cup, was an annual Australian rules footba ...

. He made his AFL debut in the thirty-five point win against in round four at the

Melbourne Cricket Ground The Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG), also known locally as "The 'G", is an Australian sports stadium located in Yarra Park, Melbourne, Victoria. Founded and managed by the Melbourne Cricket Club, it is the largest stadium in the Southern ...

. Regarded for his speed, he received high praise during his eleventh match in round fifteen against , which was described as his break-out match by ''

Fox Sports Australia Fox Sports Australia Pty Limited (formerly Premier Media Group Pty Limited) is the division of Foxtel that owns and operates the Fox Sports television networks and digital properties in Australia. The group operates nine Fox Sports Channels as w ...

'' journalist, Julian De Stoop, and then-Melbourne coach, Paul Roos, stated it was "as good a 12-possession game as e'dever seen". The next week, he recorded a then-career-high twenty-nine disposals and eight inside-50s in the thirty-two point win against at

TIO Stadium Marrara Oval, currently branded TIO Stadium under a naming rights agreement (and previously also known as Football Park), is a sports ground in Darwin, the capital of Australia's Northern Territory. The ground primarily hosts Australian rules ...

. Despite being eligible for the

AFL Rising Star The AFL Rising Star is an Australian rules football award presented annually to the player adjudged the best young player in the Australian Football League (AFL) for the year. It was first presented in the 1993 season, and was won by Nathan Buc ...

, he entered the final round of the season without a nomination, which caused Paul Roos to criticise the Rising Star process, stating "it would be a travesty if he did not receive a nomination" and proclaim he "could be the best young player in the competition". He ultimately missed out on a nomination, which led to ''Fox Sports Australia'' naming him the unluckiest player to miss a nomination. He did not miss a match following his debut and he finished with nineteen matches for the season. His season was rewarded with the

Harold Ball Memorial Trophy The Melbourne Football Club, nicknamed the Demons, is a professional Australian rules football club that competes in the Australian Football League (AFL), the sport's elite competition. It is based in Melbourne, Victoria (Australia), Victoria, ...

as Melbourne's best young player, and an eleventh-place finish in the

best and fairest In Australian sport, the best and fairest award recognises the player(s) adjudged to have had the best performance in a game or over a season for a given sporting club or competition. The awards are sometimes dependent on not receiving a suspensi ...

count. Hunt struggled to maintain a place in the Melbourne side over the following years, only being listed as an emergency in Melbourne's 2021 grand final win. The following year, Hunt exercised his rights as a free agent and moved to .

Statistics

''Updated to the end of the 2022 season''. , - ,

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2015 File:2015 Events Collage new.png, From top left, clockwise: Civil service in remembrance of November 2015 Paris attacks; Germanwings Flight 9525 was purposely crashed into the French Alps; the rubble of residences in Kathmandu following the April ...

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2016 File:2016 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: Bombed-out buildings in Ankara following the 2016 Turkish coup d'état attempt; the Impeachment of Dilma Rousseff, impeachment trial of Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff; Damaged houses duri ...

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2019 File:2019 collage v1.png, From top left, clockwise: Hong Kong protests turn to widespread riots and civil disobedience; House of Representatives votes to adopt articles of impeachment against Donald Trump; CRISPR gene editing first used to experim ...

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2020 2020 was heavily defined by the COVID-19 pandemic, which led to global social and economic disruption, mass cancellations and postponements of events, worldwide lockdowns and the largest economic recession since the Great Depression in t ...

, , , , 29 , 6 , , 10 , , 2 , , 27 , , 8 , , 35 , , 10 , , 7 , , 1.7 , , 0.3 , , 4.5 , , 1.3 , , 5.8 , , 1.7 , , 1.2 , - , 2021 AFL season, 2021 , , , , 29 , 20 , , 2 , , 3 , , 179 , , 95 , , 274 , , 64 , , 49 , , 0.1 , , 0.2 , , 9.0 , , 4.8 , , 13.7 , , 3.2 , , 2.5 , - , 2022 AFL season, 2022 , , , , 29 , 20 , , 0 , , 2 , , 134 , , 66 , , 200 , , 52 , , 27 , , 0.0 , , 0.1 , , 6.7 , , 3.3 , , 10.0 , , 2.6 , , 1.4 , - class=sortbottom ! colspan=3 , Career ! 114 !! 43 !! 25 !! 959 !! 565 !! 1524 !! 369 !! 253 !! 0.4 !! 0.2 !! 8.4 !! 5.0 !! 13.4 !! 3.2 !! 2.2 Notes

Honours and achievements

Team * McClelland Trophy (): 2021 AFL season, 2021 Individual *

: 2016 * 22 Under 22 team, 22under22 team: 2017

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Hunt, Jayden 1995 births Living people Melbourne Football Club players Australian rules footballers from Victoria (Australia) People educated at Brighton Grammar School Casey Demons players