Dual international Michael O’Connor has backed the Queensland Reds’ gamble on code-hopper Karmichael Hunt to spark them into Super Rugby title contention.
With Reds fans’ expectations building following the signing of Hunt, O’Connor said he expected the former Brisbane Broncos fullback and Gold Coast Suns utility to thrive under pressure.
O’Connor made the switch from the 15-man code to rugby league early in his career in the early 1980s.
While Hunt has gone in the reverse order, with a stint in AFL in between, he said the 28-year-old had the makings of an on-field general.
“I think there’s an expectation that he’ll make a difference, he and James O’Connor… it means there’s a lot of pressure on them to do well,” O’Connor said.
“He’s had that pressure and expectation, he’s proven very resilient going to AFL and doing what he did there.
“A lot of naysayers said he wouldn’t make it and from a lot of what I’ve heard, he did.”
O’Connor, who until recently was Australia’s rugby Sevens coach, said he had no concerns about Hunt readjusting physically but his biggest hurdle will be coming to grips with rule changes and improving his union nous.
“He played a bit of rugby over at (French rugby side) Biarritz and he played at school at Churchie but having been out of the game in rugby league and AFL, there are little nuances and rules and things that keep changing,” O’Connor said.
“Particularly around the high tackle and that sort of stuff, you can get away with it in rugby league but you can’t get away with it in rugby union.
“I think that’d be the big things, understanding the laws.”
After stepping down as national Sevens coach, O’Connor has taken up a development role with the Reds and the Sevens program.
He said Queensland still had the cattle to win the Super Rugby title, having taken out the trophy in 2011 and with a lot of their premiership-winning players still at the club.
He said their backrow was particularly strong and expected coach Richard Graham to blood highly-touted 19-year-old flanker Michael Gunn during the 2015 season.
Former Australian Schoolboys representative Gunn played in Easts’ 2013 Brisbane Premier Rugby grand final win and got his first taste of higher competition this year when he played for Brisbane City on their way to the National Rugby Championship title.
“(Gunn) is only a youngster, but he’s a real player of the future, a real beauty,” O’Connor said.
“I’ve just watched him and certainly if he wasn’t signed to the Reds, he’d be one of the first blokes I would have had in the Sevens squad.
“He’s really fit, has good footwork, a good football brain.”
