Senior Hunter Clark

It was lightning quick, but it didn’t take Hunter Clark long to adjust to the pace at Ikon Park.

After having a brief taste in AFLX, Clark produced an eye-catching performance in the 22-point loss to Carlton in the JLT Community Series on Wednesday night.

Clark, who was taken at pick No. 7 in last November’s NAB AFL Draft, shone under the dimly lit lights at Carlton’s Headquarters, kicking two classy goals from 12 disposals.


“I really enjoyed the experience. It was good fun,” Clark told saints.com.au after the game on Wednesday night.

“It was pretty hard to get into things with the speed picking up so much, but once you get your hands on the footy a few times you adjust pretty quickly.”

The 18-year-old spent the majority of the night playing across half-forward, where key forwards Paddy McCartin and Tim Membrey helped make his life easier.

“It was pretty cool playing alongside Tim Membrey and Paddy McCartin,” he said.

“They are great leaders, encouraged me a lot and helped me out with positioning because I wasn’t too familiar with a lot of it. They looked out for me and got around me if I did something well.”

Sharing the formative stages of his AFL career with Nick Coffield, who was drafted the pick after him last year, has made the transition easier for Clark, with the pair set to be linked for a long time to come.

“It’s good having another guy your own age going through a similar process to you,” he said.

“It makes you feel a bit better about yourself having someone you can lean off.”


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lewdogs

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Watched a bit of the replay of the Blues game last night. How about Hunter off both feet? This guy could be one of the most two-footed players we've seen in a long time. Also, he's got size and pace.

I think we have a serious player on our hands here. VERY excited.
 
Will be interesting to see if Richo selects Hunter as well as Coffield for round 1 . I would play them both as they are both going to be great players but they need game time.


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Moorabbin Ghost

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A quieter night for my boy Hunter on Thursday night. 8 disposals, 2 marks, 5 tackles and 1 goal, 1 behind.
He now has 8 days of internal work to push his case for Round 1. Right now I’d conservatively say he’s a 60% chance to debut. Fingers crossed because i think he can add some much needed class forward of centre.
 
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A quieter night for my boy Hunter on Thursday night. 8 disposals, 2 marks, 5 tackles and 1 goal, 1 behind.
26 pressure acts (2nd best for the team) and 5 tackles won't have done his chances any harm though, given that he is presumably in there to play the defensive role, with Mav and Lonie not picked.

Probably between him and Koby for that last spot in the team, all things being equal.

Could be our version of what Josh Dunkley was for WB (in his first year), for us this year.
 
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Hold on to your headbands kids! Hunter's gonna debut in round 1 - the beginning of a beautiful relationship.

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Moorabbin Ghost

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Very happy with Hunter’s debut on Saturday, especially in that last quarter where he set a couple of entries up for us from half back.
Can’t wait to see him spend some bursts on the wing once he finds his feet.

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Top 10 draftees Hunter Clark and Nick Coffield have re-signed at St Kilda, extending their current contracts until the end of 2021.

The pair put pen to paper earlier this week with high hopes of what’s to come at the Saints.


“It’s an awesome feeling. Speaking on behalf of both of us, we’re pretty keen and excited because we’ve got such a bright future,” Coffield said.

“We’re looking forward to hopefully improving as individuals and as a club over the next four years."

Taken at pick No. 8 in last year’s National Draft, former Northern Knights captain Coffield praised the club’s new facilities at RSEA Park.

“It's an upgrade from Seaford where we started, so yeah we’re sort of just getting used to the whole new environment, just embracing it and making the most out of it.”

Get to know Nick Coffield

The 18-year-old sported a new addition to his footy boots in the away fixture against Geelong on Sunday to create awareness for the PC12 Foundation.

Adding ‘PC12’ to his boots was Coffield’s way of raising awareness of the anti-coward punch charity established in honour of Pat Cronin, a family friend of the Coffields who was tragically killed on April 16 2016.

“Our family’s pretty close with them, so to create a bit of awareness around them I put ‘PC12’ on the back of my boots because it was his two-year anniversary yesterday," he said.

Fellow draftee Hunter Clark was the Saints’ first selection, taken at pick No. 7, and the silky midfielder is looking forward to building on his two senior games at St Kilda.

“It was pretty awesome,” Clark said of making his debut in St Kilda's Round 1 win against the Brisbane Lions.

Get to know Hunter Clark

Clark and Coffield moved in together after being drafted, and Clark’s assessment of his housemate’s habits is frank.

“Yeah, he’s pretty messy, leaves his food lying around a lot,” he said.

“Nick likes to give himself haircuts that look terrible most of the time. He just walks into my room and he’s shaved the sides of his head off.

“It’s good fun though, we’ve had some pretty good laughs and hopefully we can live with each other for a couple more years.”

St Kilda fans will be hoping the pair can also combine on the field and build on the exciting glimpses they have provided in the opening four rounds.


Go Saints
 
May 10, 2013
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How good is this kid going to be, noticed at one stage in the West Coast game, not sure what 1/4 but Hunter was being jostled by his opponent behind the umpires back at a centre bounce. So when the ball got bounced, Hunter pushed his opponent to the right of the umpire and made a beeline for the ball that was to the left. One very mature head there, very clever indeed, simple but bloody brilliantly executed. :thumbsu:
 
Hunter Clark’s selfless performance against the Suns has been rewarded with a NAB Rising Star nomination.

After injuries to both Jimmy Webster and Bailey Rice decimated St Kilda’s already undermanned backline, Clark put his hand up to switch back from the midfield and help his teammates repel the Suns’ relentless attack.

READ: Bruised Saints fight back


In just his 10th game of AFL football, the classy 19-year-old was influential in the Saints’ miraculous comeback, surging his side forward from the half-back line and showcasing his elite distribution by foot.

The Dandenong Stingrays product collected 17 disposals at 82% efficiency, including four contested possessions and five intercept possessions in his most damaging senior outing to date.

Clark lifted in the last quarter, along with many of his teammates, finishing with four score involvements and six tackles.


Hunter Clark's elite distribution and run off half-back was crucial for the Saints

Taken at pick No. 7 in last year’s National Draft, Clark shows composure well beyond his years and will be a strong contributor for the Saints for a long time.

Senior coach Alan Richardson was full of praise for the first-year Saint, particularly after the loss of two defenders “unbalanced things”.

“Clark, who’s planning to be a midfielder, goes back, and I thought he was just fantastic for us late,” Richardson said.

“For a young person to have that sort of composure – he laid six tackles – there was a bit in it for the group.”


Go Saints
 
Hunter Clark has ticked a lot of boxes this year.

Moving out of home. AFL debut. First win. Then (finally) a second. And now NAB AFL Rising Star nominee for round 13.


The St Kilda young gun, the No.7 pick in the 2017 draft, is back in the familiar surrounds of sleepy bayside suburb Safety Beach this week, with the Saints on the bye.

Clark, 19, will again tackle something new: the role of 'babysitter', although his siblings Molly, 17, and Angus, 13, might take exception to the term.
Their parents are holidaying in Bali, so Clark – fresh from playing an instrumental role in St Kilda's remarkable last-quarter comeback over Gold Coast on Saturday – is effectively in charge.

"No, definitely not," the Mt Martha and Dandenong Stingrays product told AFL.com.au with a laugh when asked if his brother and sister would obey him.

But all jokes aside, Clark has done a lot of growing up in 2018. He has moved in with fellow Saints Nick Coffield, who was drafted one selection behind him last year, and Doulton Langlands, not far from the club's Moorabbin base.

It's easy to forget when watching them smoothly transition to the AFL stage that, at the end of the day, they are still just kids.

"It was pretty hard the first few weeks not having mum to cook or wash. We'd all leave our plates out, then they'd still be there a few days later," Clark said.

"But it's been awesome. I've become pretty good mates with Nick and Doulton and it's made me a lot more independent and responsible."

Clarkdebut1.jpg
Clark made his debut in against the Lions in Round 1.

It's not only his living arrangements, either.

Clark walked into a football club that had expectations of contending for finals this year, but it instead went without a victory for an 11-match stretch that cemented it in the bottom four.

Amid all that, he was dropped twice – after rounds two and five – in an experience foreign to the star junior who won the Stingrays' 2017 TAC Cup best and fairest in record-breaking fashion.

Clark, who already re-signed at St Kilda through the 2021 season, bounced back to played the last seven games in a row since returning to the senior side.

"I hadn't had to face being dropped before, so it was a bit different, but I got positive messages and went back and played a VFL game," he said.

"'Richo' (coach Alan Richardson) just told me to try and find the footy and get back into form, and I had a pretty good VFL game and that gave me heaps of confidence.

"You don't want to be dropped, but there's always a reason … at the start, I wasn't aware of just how quick the game would be and how quick you have to transition and be alert to what's going on.

"My last couple of months, the focus has just been to really be alert and play with more urgency, and I've just been getting to better spots."

WATCH: Get to know Hunter Clark

That improvement was on display at the weekend, with Clark's desperation and cleanness with ball in hand a feature of his play in the cut-throat final term.

He described the win, after Jade Gresham's brilliant snap capped a five-goals-to-none fourth quarter, as the best he'd been involved in, because of the tough times that preceded it.

The defender finished with 17 disposals at 82 per cent efficiency, six tackles, five intercept possessions and four score involvements.

None of Clark's performance surprised Stingrays talent manager Mark Wheeler, who watched him blossom at Shepley Oval from age 14 despite knee and groin setbacks along the way.

"Hunter was always meticulous in the way he went about stuff," Wheeler told AFL.com.au.

"He played midfield for us and that aggressive play from him that we're seeing now probably started happening midway through last year.

"He's pretty laidback off the field, but he hates to lose and that's the (part of his) personality no-one has got to see yet and that's why he snuck under the radar for a few of them."

Clark plans to catch up with mates this week he hasn't seen for months and generally just refresh ahead of the second half of the season.

"Nothing's really changed with the way I've been treated or anything. I've just come back and I'm living a normal life," he said.

"I get a break from footy for a few days, which will be good, because it's been pretty full-on this year so far."

Go Saints
 
Very quiet against Carlton until the last quarter when he had 7 disposals and did some really good work . Hope it’s enough to keep him in the side for next week with possibility of Acres , Ross and Battle all returning.


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