STAR DEFENDER HUNT PROUD TO BOW OUT ON TOP OF GAME

DAN Hunt might not like the attention but the West Perth premiership defender and life member will go down as one of the Falcons' all-time great defenders as he prepares to play the final game of his career on Saturday against Perth at Lathlain Park.

Hunt arrived at West Perth in 2005 following three years with the Sydney Swans and ever since has been the mainstay of the Falcons defence, and one of the very best key backmen in the WAFL over the course of his 168-game career.

Along the way, Hunt has had his named etched on to the No. 12 locker, has become a life member of the West Perth Football Club, represented WA and was a key contributor in the 2013 premiership playing a starring role in the grand final win over East Perth.

For someone who doesn’t like the attention, that is quite the list of accolades that the 30-year-old has accumulated, but he knows the time is right to retire in order to spend more time at home with his wife and daughter, and focus more on work.

"It's probably a combination of a few different things. Most importantly is my family. I have a young daughter who is 17 months old now and with my wife as well it was probably about time I spent a bit more time with them," Hunt said on WAFL World on 91.3 SportFM.

"The demands of WAFL footy can mean that you are away from home quite a bit and not just that, but my work takes up a fair bit of time so that time I have available for the family is quite limited. I just want to make sure of that opportunity while our daughter is young and spend a little bit more time with her basically."

However, as he prepares for his 169th and final WAFL appearance he isn’t quite sure how to feel and things did get emotional for himself and fellow retiree Anthony Tsalikis following their final training session at HBF Arena on Thursday night.

"It is probably quite a surreal feeling actually. It's been a long time that I've been doing this now and I've been at West Perth for about 10 years so there will be some massive changes to my life. It's quite a bizarre feeling and something that I'll have to get used to," he said.

"It did get a little emotional just because of the fact that you know it's your last session and you are quite upbeat about the whole thing, and then at the end we did a little bit of a presentation that was for both myself and Anthony Tsalikis. That was a nice little tribute that the club set up for us. It was a good time, but it was also quite weird having that attention."

While Hunt always enjoyed his career with West Perth, up until last year's finals series there was that burning desire for success in September.

That's exactly what he got with the second semi-final win over Claremont at Claremont Oval that doubled as his 150th game and then in the grand final win over East Perth a fortnight later.

"We've had some great wins along the way and made finals, but apart from the premiership year last year I hadn’t played in any other winning finals. In terms of standout moments, I can't really list them other than the final against Claremont last year followed by the grand final," he said.

"That was just such a great feeling after that game. It was a close game all day but we felt that we had the ability to run over the top of Claremont and even though we only won by three points in the end, we felt we played really well. That instilled the belief that we had the ability to go one step further and that was one of the reasons why we were able to take out the premiership."

While Hunt has been one of the best defenders in the WAFL over the last decade, kicking goals hasn’t been his forte with him booting just the two in his career – both in 2008.

He can remember one of them fondly and his goalkicking prowess is in direct contract to that of his fellow retiree Tsalikis who has kicked 332 across his career.

Hunt wouldn’t mind adding to his tally on Saturday but doesn’t expect any help from Tsalikis who needs one more goal to be outright third on the all-time West Perth goalkicking list.

"I can remember one of them. I took a mark at about the 50-metre line and someone infringed and gave away a free-kick late so I got a 50 to take me to the goal square, and I managed to slot it through. That's the only goal I can remember," Hunt said.

"I have already thrown it to Bill about putting me forward and the ball's in his court so whether or not he uses me forward is up to him. I've said I want to double my tally but whether or not it happens who knows. I'm pretty sure if Slick is 50 out and I'm alone in the square I don’t think he will be popping it over the top to me, that's for sure."

Hunt's journey to come to West Perth was unconventional, but he couldn’t have been happier with how it's all turned out and even the way he is finishing in 2014 in as good form as at any other point of his career.

"I've been pretty happy with my season this year and I would hate to be one of those guys who goes out and is forced out the door because of your form. I do think that I'm retiring at a good time where I'm still able to play some reasonably good footy so I think that's a good thing," he said.

"I had a bit of a strange set up when I was younger when I played colts at South Fremantle and then moved to the northern suburbs quite close to Joondalup so I was leased to West Perth for a year, and then when I returned to Perth three years later Darren Harris was coaching the team.

"Some of the guys I had played footy with had a fair bit of involvement with Darren Harris and basically said how great a coach he was so that swayed my decision to go to West Perth. I was again living in the northern suburbs so it was quite convenient to me as well.

"I never thought I would be there for such a long period of time and in the early days I never really thought about that, but once I got to the 100-game milestone I sort of thought I'd go a bit longer and just kept going and now I'm quite happy with what I've done, and quite satisfied to bring it to an end on Saturday."

As any key defender, Hunt has had some tremendous battles over the years with some of the great forwards of the past decade and the three he was quick to single out were Claremont's Chad Jones (404 goals in 129 WAFL games), Subiaco's Brad Smith (530 in 140) and Swan Districts' Ashley Hansen (284 in 99).

"I think Chad Jones for me was always a really tough match up. He was just so quick and his hands on the lead were sensational so I think he would probably be the most consistent and best forward that I played on," Hunt said.

"I also had some good battles with Brad Smith back in the day and Ash Hansen was also another one who really stands out as being a really tough opponent. He got hold of me a couple of times and I managed to do OK on another couple of occasions. There have been a couple of interesting battles with those three."