How 12 metres of poly pipe laid the foundations for a Matildas World Cup bolter
By Vince Rugari
Patience is a virtue. Just ask Clare Hunt, whose journey to the Women’s World Cup has been characterised by an awful lot of waiting.
Waiting for her injuries to heal. Waiting for her chance at international level to arrive.
And before all of that, waiting for hours upon hours in the car with her old man in pursuit of the dream she is about to realise.
Clare Hunt (right) puts pressure on England’s Lauren James.Credit: Getty
Hunt was just another uncapped hopeful four months ago, but is now an indispensable part of Tony Gustavsson’s plans for the tournament, an unexpected cornerstone of their injury-hit defence who arrived out of nowhere, just at the right time.
When she made her sure-footed debut against Czechia earlier this year, Gustavsson said he’d never seen a first-timer look more comfortable in Australian colours.
But her emergence should not really be that much of a surprise. A closer look at the 24-year-old’s pedigree suggests that this was probably always her path in life.
Hunt grew up on a sheep farm just outside Grenfell, NSW, a four-and-a-half hour drive west of Sydney. Her brother, Henry, played 37 first-class games for South Australia and plies his trade with the Adelaide Strikers in the Big Bash League. Until recently, he was captain of the Redbacks.
Henry Hunt celebrates a century for the Redbacks.Credit: Getty
“We would always be super-competitive in the backyard playing cricket, football, whatever it is,” Clare recalls.
They owe a lot to their father, James, who played one first-grade game for the Canberra Raiders in 1992, and mother, Megan, another naturally sporty type, who drove them to and from training and matches for 10 years, which more often than not meant a minimum two-and-a-half hour trip each way to Canberra. Such is the life of sport in the bush.
“Dad put in some ridiculous hours,” Hunt says. “But, honestly, all three of us – I’ve got a younger sister as well – and he would drive us to Bathurst, Canberra, Sydney. We’d go down [to Canberra] multiple times a week to train and then obviously have a game on the weekend.
Clare Hunt has been an A-League standout with the Western Sydney Wanderers.Credit: Getty
“Dad did that for Henry when he was playing his cricket, too, so we would have done Canberra trips for almost 10 years. He was unreal. You [become] so tight-knit with your family – like if you’re sitting in a car with dad for five hours, four times a week, there’s only so much you can talk about.”
That’s not all she has to be grateful for. When the Hunt kids weren’t jumping on quad bikes with their dad to check on the sheep, having bonfires in the backyard, or just enjoying the serenity she didn’t fully appreciate until she moved to Sydney, the farm also doubled as a pretty decent sporting facility.
You could call it the Hunt Institute for Sport. It explains a lot.
“When Henry was playing cricket, Dad built a shed and put in an indoor cricket pitch,” Clare says.
“On one of the paddocks out the back, we have a tennis court. I asked Dad if he could put up a goal for me one day. I was at school. I was like, ‘If you could pop up a goal for me, that would be the best.’
“So he went and got some poly pipe, measured out the height and width of a goal, and put up poly pipe against the tennis court fence so I could go out in the back paddock and have a goal to kick at – and he mowed the back paddock for me, so it was fairly neat.
“I was out there a fair bit, but we had a relatively large backyard with a pool fence as well that I could knock the ball against and get a one-two back.”
Hunt was 12 years old when she knew she wanted to be a footballer. It was at a junior camp where she was asked to jot down her goals, and wrote that she wanted to play for the Matildas.
Getting there was a lot less simple. Between 2018 and 2022, she had seven separate operations, having suffered an injured ACL (which required four further surgeries), a broken arm and a shoulder reconstruction.
“I love football so much,” she says. “All I wanted to do was play the game. And I don’t think I understood how much I valued it until I had my ACL.
“When you’re out for such an extended period of time, it just makes you realise how much you want it. That was the driving force for me. I knew my potential, I knew that I could do something with my football career, I just obviously couldn’t, because I was physically incapable for such a long period of time.
“[I never thought] I must recover so I can play professional football. I wanted to recover so I can feel good, and I can walk to the shops or do like little things. When you’re on crutches for six, eight weeks, you forget how nice it is to walk around the house. Once you understand and have that perspective, it makes you value playing so much more.”
Clare Hunt (left) in action for Western Sydney Wanderers in the A-League Women’s competition.Credit: Getty
When her Matildas call-up finally came, for the Cup of Nations earlier this year, Hunt made it count. Teammates were astounded at how easily she slotted in. Originally thought of as giving them added depth in central defence, Alanna Kennedy’s continued injury misfortune has made Hunt an almost automatic starter alongside Clare Polkinghorne.
As she did in rehab, before her first camp, Hunt mentally broke down the challenge in front of her.
“I never really thought, ‘I’ve got to start matches; I’ve got to do this’,” she says. “I’m more just like, immerse yourself in the environment and have the best experience and learn as much as you can. The byproduct of that is me enjoying game time.
“[And] if everything goes to shit, you’ve got some pretty amazing players who are gonna help you out ... allow yourself to make mistakes, allow yourself to have fun. You only get this opportunity once. Once I took all the pressure off, I just played how I normally play and, obviously, that was enough to secure a starting spot for the next game.”
And the next. And the next.
After making the Professional Footballers Australia A-League Women’s team of the season after a brilliant campaign for Western Sydney Wanderers, Hunt spent several weeks training with FA Women’s Super League side Everton. Unsurprisingly, she slotted right in there, too, and a move to England after the World Cup is probably on the cards.
“I absolutely loved it,” she says.
“It was obviously a very different style of football, very possession-based, because obviously over here in Australia, we love a bit of transition. I feel like if I want to obviously up my game a bit, I would love to go over there and try and do that.”
For now, though, it’s all about what’s in front of her, and how Hunt can use this World Cup to repay her parents for getting her there.
“The way that they have been able to contribute so much time to us reflects how much they, obviously, care for us and how proud they are when we go out and do what we do,” she says.
“They just wanted to give us the best opportunity. As kids, we never felt any pressure from it. We were just like, ‘Oh, this is so much fun.’ They’re like, ‘Well, if you love it, let’s do it. Let’s invest in it.’
“Mum and Dad pretty much dropped everything and made sure that we can get to training, get to games, and now that I reflect on it, the amount of time and energy they put into all three of us has been fairly immense. And it’s made me appreciate and value of what they’ve given me, but also what I can give back to them now in terms of them just sitting there and being really proud.”