Playing at Burrangong Oval, Outlaws led by 17 at quarter-time and from there went on to a convincing Central West AFL victory.

“He’s a great spearhead for us, you know what you are going to get from him, he’s so clinical when he’s got the ball and even when he doesn’t, his presence around the field is really good,” Outlaws co-coach Paul Long said of Hunter.

While the performance took Hunter to 13 goals for the season and he’s on track to eclipse his 23 majors from 2016, he was not the only Bushranger to impress. Long said the telling factor in Saturday’s match was the Outlaws’ run out of the centre.

“I think we really dominated out of the midfield. We’ve gone in with some new tactics this year around the ground and we put that into practice really well,” he said.

“The guys knew their roles and they performed, so through the midfield we were very clinical. Coming out we gave ourselves the first opportunity with the ball, so that was a real strength.”

As convincing as the Outlaws’ win was, accuracy inside 50 was not a highlight early.

However, improving that statistic did help motivate Outlaws to keep the pressure on through all four quarters – Long’s side booting 10 goals three in the final term.

“Moving forward we picked something to work on, like we didn’t kick well at all early on, we were four goals 16 at one stage, and it ended up 21-24, so we nearly turned that around,” he said.

“That was one of the things we were working on for the day, but with the squad we have, it does make it easy to stay motivated.”