Jayden Hunt

Early life

Hunt was born into a football family with his great uncle, Harold Rumney, playing 186 games in the Victorian Football League (now the Australian Football League) for the Collingwood Football Club and Carlton Football Club, including four premierships with Collingwood between 1927 and 1930; and his uncle, Andrew Moir, played 73 matches for the Melbourne Football Club from 1977–1981. He played under 16 level football with the Hampton Rovers Football Club in 2011 before playing school football with Brighton Grammar School, competing in the Associated Public Schools of Victoria (APS) during his draft year and he did not play in the TAC Cup or under 18 championships during that year. His only representative match for the year was the APS vs. Associated Grammar Schools of Victoria (AGSV) match.

AFL career

Playing just the one representative match for the year, Hunt was drafted by the Melbourne Football Club 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 journalist, Sam Landsberger, noted he was "plucked from relative obscurity". After playing the first six matches in the Victorian Football League (VFL) for Melbourne's affiliate team, 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 Essendon.

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. He made his AFL debut in the thirty-five point win against Collingwood in round four at the Melbourne Cricket Ground. Regarded for his speed, he received high praise during his eleventh match in round fifteen against Adelaide, which was described as his break-out match by Fox Sports Australia journalist, Julian De Stoop, and then-Melbourne coach, Paul Roos, stated it was "as good a 12-possession game as [he'd] ever seen". The next week, he recorded a career-high twenty-nine dispoals and eight inside-50s in the thirty-two point win against Fremantle at TIO Stadium. Despite being eligible for the AFL Rising Star, 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 as Melbourne's best young player, and an eleventh place finish in the best and fairest count.

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