Hunt on 30 years of nurturing young talent and getting it right at the top level

Hunt, who handed a professional football debut to a young Benni McCarthy at the age of 17, at Seven Stars in the mid 90’s, has gone on to introduce a number of players to big-time football in the last three decades. From his days at Stars, Hellenic, Moroka Swallows, SuperSport United, Bidvest Wits and Kaizer Chiefs, his track record with youngsters speaks for itself. Speaking to young coaches at the SM Sports’ mentorship programme at Athlone stadium yesterday, this is how Hunt approaches this topic.

"The player has to be good enough first, you know, I’m not just going to put a youngster in because he’s a youngster, so he has to be good enough and he has to have all the attributes. And sometimes where he plays also helps," said Hunt

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"So if he’s a wide player, you know what I’m saying, you can get help. Benni McCarthy. So when Benni, he was a striker, I played him in the wide area, to protect him a little bit. It’s like taking a central defender. He’s got to have certain attributes. If he’s weak, I mean, he’s not going to play really, you know, and centre backs normally mature a bit later in life, so he has to be good enough firstly,"

"But obviously he has to have attributes and have all the things I’ve just spoken about, you know, the attitudes and things like that. Obviously have the ability. But you must never be afraid to put a young player, in my opinion, because you’ll be surprised. A young player improves, man. It’s amazing how they improve so quickly, man, you know, and you would be so surprised in eight or nine game you'd be like wow."

Around 2011, it was also Hunt who introduced Bafana Bafana goalkeeper Ronwen Williams to big-time football, and he had a well-worked plan on how to do this back then. 

Speaking to some of the local coaches in Cape Town yesterday through SM Sports Consulting’s mentorship programme, Hunt recalls a meeting he had with the legendary former head coach of Manchester United, Sir Alex Ferguson, on how to manage and phase out talent.

Former Bafana Bafana midfielder and European-based football agent Lance Davids made an interesting observation during this mentorship programme, highlighting the importance of younger players breaking into the DSTV Diski Challenge (DDC) programme. He says this could help to fastrack some talent in the country and address the problem of late bloomers.

With SA now regularly qualifying for junior international competitions, the local football competitions can also do with some amendments and expose talent a bit earlier to strong competitions like the DDC, as Davids suggests.