Chris Hunt: Narrabri Blues veteran is back for another season

The Tamworth-based personal fitness instructor, however, has no trouble recalling a great disappointment in his life - when, as a raw but talented utility back, he spent a brief period in the Knights' NRL squad in the early noughties, before a knee injury derailed his dream.

"I did all my training with the first-grade and reserve-grade [sides]," he said. "You had Andrew Johns and all them blokes playing with the Knights back then."

The disappointment of Hunt's NRL dream vanishing, after looming so large, is intrinsically linked to his greatest sporting achievement: playing four games for the Knights' reserve-grade side. He had shone brightly enough to outgrow, athletically, his tiny hometown of Walgett, situated in remote north-west NSW.

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"It was unreal," he said of his Knights stint, adding that the reserve-grade games he played were curtain raisers to first grade.

"I think it was against the Roosters, on a Friday night in Newcastle, and it was a packed house."

He continued: "I would of loved just to have played one [NRL] game ... But, like I said, it was a big achievement for me: coming from Walgett, a small town of 2000 people, and working my way up."

Hunt recalled those two profound elements of his story as he prepares to once again test, in the Group 4 cauldron, a striking athlete's body that turns 41 in June.

And it is at his fourth Group 4 club, Narrabri, who play the Cowboys in Dungowan on Saturday, that the father of four - a premiership winner at Wests and Norths - has found greater acceptance of his ability after his frustrating, short-lived stint at Kootingal-Moonbi last year.

For it was the Blues who handed him the No 6 jersey when he joined them midway thought last season, entrusting the veteran to be a conductor of their offence as they chased a long-awaited premiership, which remained elusive when Omicron invaded Australia and the competition was cancelled late in the season; the minor premiership the Blues' reward.

"I was stuck playing reserve grade at Kooty," Hunt said, "and I wanted to be playing first-grade football, especially at the back end of my career."

"I went out and trained with them [Narrabri] the Friday night," he also said, "and they chucked me straight in in the six." He added: "Their style of football sort of suits my style, which is good."

That style, he explained, is "a pretty straight forward type of game, where the forwards get on a roll and I can play footy and take the line on off the back of that". His big body is ideally suited for that task.

Hunt missed Narrabri's first game of 2022, a 42-22 away loss to Dungowan, after his problematic right knee - operated on three times including in 2020 - "locked up".

But he was back for the Blues' second match, against Gunnedah at home on Sunday, and scored two tries and had another disallowed in the Blues' 36-18 win.

"I wasn't confident about how my knee would go," he said. "But just to get through the game and play 80 minutes is a confidence booster for me. And I just want to try and build on that now, and just hopefully the old knee holds up for me."

"I'm still enjoying it," he said of playing footy. "I find it challenging as well, to sort of keep these young fellas on their toes.

"I know that I'm probably not as quick and agile as I used to be, but I still feel like I can compete pretty well with the younger fellas." Indeed.

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