Confident Hunt ready to move on
BEN Hunt has pointed to his resilience following the 2015 grand final as proof he can shrug off his State of Origin disappointment and launch an assault on the premiership for St George Illawarra.
Hunt has endured a tough representative period, copping the brunt of criticism for Queensland’s seriesdeciding loss in Origin Two before being dropped to the bench for last week’s dead rubber.
But it’s not the first time the 28year- old has been forced to deal with such adversity in his career.
After piloting Brisbane to their first grand final in almost a decade in 2015, he famously dropped the kickoff in the first half of golden point be- fore Johnathan Thurston North Queensland to victory.
The error, and how Hunt would rebound from it, became the talking point of the following summer but he still earned his first Queensland jersey last season, and has been one of the buys of the year at the Dragons this season.
Now Hunt is ready to put what he learnt from that error into practice as the third- placed Dragons embark on a run to win their first title since 2010.
“I’ve played a lot of big footy now, and I think I have gotten over a pretty big grand final in the past and I’m feeling pretty good about it,” Hunt said yesterday. “I knew that I had made a mistake ( in Origin). I’ve made booted lots of them in rugby league over my career. It’s about how you move on from that. I’ve found different ways and developed ways to do that throughout my career. And I just need to move on.”
It’s for that reason Hunt maintains his confidence is still sky- high headed into Saturday’s away trip to face the Cowboys, despite the admittedly “tough” fallout.
He was impressive in Origin III, coming off the bench and into dummy- half with minimum fuss in defence while still producing some speed and creativity out of the ruck.
“I was feeling pretty confident that I still got picked to play Origin, I’m still feeling pretty good,” Hunt said.