Collingwood rookie-list player Tom Hunter has announced his retirement from playing football, effective immediately.
Hunter, 20, suffered a neck injury in a collision during the first quarter of the Magpies’ NAB Cup semi-final against West Coast at Patersons Stadium on March 5. He played no further part in the game and spent two nights in a Perth hospital under observation after experiencing numbness in his arm.
Hunter experienced a similar injury playing for Collingwood’s VFL team in August last year and did not play for the rest of the 2010 season. He had an extremely good 2011 pre-season campaign, and earned selection in the senior side for the first three weeks of this year’s NAB Cup competition.
However, these injury setbacks led Hunter and the club to seek specialist medical advice on his situation, and as a result Hunter, in consultation with his family and the club, has decided not to continue playing football.
Hunter will remain part of Collingwood in 2011 and continue to train with the club as he normally would as a listed player, in an attempt to regain full fitness, which the club is fully supportive of. However, he will not be available for selection.
Hunter was drafted by the Magpies with the 18th overall pick in the 2009 AFL Rookie Draft, after playing in the Calder Cannons under 18s TAC Cup premiership side that year.
As a versatile and courageous 185-centimetre midfielder/flanker, Hunter played for the Magpies VFL team in 2010 and was developing well, and earned a second year on the club’s rookie list in 2011.
CLICK HERE to watch Tom Hunter interviewed on CTV on YouTube.
