Hunter, who played seven games for the Saints during a five-year AFL career, is currently tied to Port Melbourne in the VFL and has chosen the Magpies as his affiliate club.
While the club understands he will be balancing his commitment to Euroa with his Port Melbourne duties, the recruitment of Hunter will still add plenty to the Magpies’ exciting list as they push for their first flag in 22 years.
“It should be really good (having Paul on board), Nathan Stewart is training with him down at Port Melbourne and already he has been sharing his wisdom with him, even though he is playing at Port he still should be around a bit and will provide some really good insight into the game,” Euroa coach Scott Rowan said.
“Anytime you can bring a player with Paul’s experience in to your squad it just gives everyone a massive boost.”
Close friends with Euroa ruckman and reigning best-and-fairest Andrew Smith, Hunter will form an imposing duo with the premier big man when he does don the black and white, as the Magpies look to exploit opposition teams with their height.
Rowan said he couldn’t wait to see Smith and Hunter combine in the ruck this season.
‘“Andrew Smith and Paul Hunter are good mates and played together up in Queensland and after catching up at a wedding he said to ‘Paul what’s your local club?’ and that’s how we sort of got the ball rolling,” he said.
“We are under no illusions that best case scenario is he plays the minimum number of games to qualify for finals and, worst case, he plays three or four to give Smithy that chop out and, when Paul does play, it will give Andrew that real opportunity to rest his legs and park pretty deep in the forward line.”
Hunter isn’t the only fresh face set to grace Memorial Oval this season, with the club also luring Will McIntosh from University Blacks and Noah Hura from Mandurah in Western Australia.
Rowan outlined how the pair got to the club and what it’ll bring to the field this season.
“I think it is pretty well known that Noah was on Love Island with Ben Giobbi and they became really good mates, so Benny rang me and said Noah was keen on a game of footy, so we got ahold of him and he is going really well,” he said.
“Will played at Uni Blacks last year, I spoke to him two years ago about coming over from Albury, so very happy to have him come across, he is a really good runner and with a bit of an opening on that wing with Tom Panuccio going to Geelong, it is very much like-for-like.”
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