Buccs hero embracing bigger role to start 2026

Featured image: Michael Farnell (Sports Imagery)

Liam Hunt was a natural to take over the Geraldton Buccaneers captaincy after playing through a fractured leg to win a third NBL1 West championship before a blistering start to 2026 and admittedly being shocked to now have to play against Johny Narkle.

There might be no more heroic figures in the history of the Buccaneers than Hunt. That even includes his own dad, but while it looked obvious from the outside, he didn’t necessarily see himself as the natural to replace Aaron Ralph as captain in 2026.

Instead, Hunt wanted two-time Grand Final MVP Narkle to take on that responsibility as the natural next step in his career with the Buccaneers on the back of the experience he had in NBL26 with the Illawarra Hawks.

The last thing Hunt was expecting was to be playing against Narkle now in the 2026 NBL1 West season. That might not now happen this Saturday back in Geraldton where his debut with the Cockburn Cougars could be delayed after the postponement of last Saturday's game.

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However, at some point he will have to play against Narkle and he will be there at Active West Stadium in a Cougars uniform. Hunt has no problem admitting to the shock he felt when he found out on Christmas Day of his signing at Cockburn.

"It's a tricky one and I've lost some sleep over it, and it kinda hurt my feelings a little bit when they posted it on Christmas and I was over in Europe with my brother," Hunt said on The Hoop Hour on 91.3 SportFM.

"I think was about seven in the morning when I found out and it was my brother who told me so the first thing I did was grab a beer and just started drinking to drown my sorrows, and we only found out when they posted it.

"I had heard that he was going to sign somewhere else but I had no idea it was going to be in our league and at Cockburn, and that one did really hurt to be fair and I was really gutted by it.

"I don’t know how to put it into words, but you just lose a kid who you love more as a person than you do as a player and I never thought of Johny as a guy that I want to play with just because he's a superstar – which he is a superstar.

"You just want to play with because he's so fun to play with, but because he's such a great kid off the court as well and not only that, he was going to be part of our leadership and I was never keen on taking the captain's spot.

"My whole thing was for that to go to Johny and I would back Johny the whole way in so that was the big plan for us and fast forward to this weekend, obviously I've talked to him since then and he was at my wedding still in February, and it's going to be strange playing against him.

"I'm not sure if that is happening this weekend now because their game got postponed on the weekend but he will be there either way and he actually came to the game against Mandurah so we saw him on Sunday.

"So we'll miss him but it's a new challenge without him and we've got some new players, and had we kept Johny I don't think we'd have had the chance to get Devondrick and I've always been a glass half full kinda person, and now I get the chance to play with him."

Warrior reputation cemented in Grand Final

The Buccaneers have created some heroic figures since the SBL started back in 1989 and transformed into the NBL1 West in 2021 including Hunt's very own father who had a storied 382-game career.

You can throw Ray Evans, Greg Brown, Jason Bunter and plenty more into that mix too and certainly two of Hunt's three-time championship winning teammates Aaron Ralph and Mat Wundenberg.

Wundenberg is still playing and Ralph is now enjoying retirement as the league's all-time three-point leader, but it's hard to imagine anyone that is a more inspirational figure than Hunt and who fits the warrior mould that Geraldton produces.

He is a three-time champion and while a one-time Grand Final MVP, he had to be high up in the voting just behind Narkle in the 2023 and 2025 triumphs as well while what he did last year sums him up to a tee.

Already with a bandaged head after a nasty cut where he put in a heroic preliminary final performance just to get the Buccs to the Grand Final at RAC Arena, he then couldn’t help but be reminded of his horror leg of 2020.

It turned out he fractured his leg in the third quarter, but heroically he returned early in the fourth to a remarkable reaction from the travelling Buccs fans. Even if he didn’t last much longer due to fouling out, his sheer presence was uplifting to his teammates.

"I fractured my tibia in the end and last AFL season big Sam Darcy from the Bulldogs hyperextended his knee and was out for about eight weeks, and he had the same fracture that I did," Hunt said.

"I hyperextended it on the play and it had to be when I was walling up on (Elijah) Pepper and I just landed a bit awkward, and I think the PTSD kicked in a bit there because when I did it last time it was from walling up in transition so that always gets me a bit nervous.

"I ended up fracturing the tibia but I couldn’t really feel it until after the game so once our physio went down to check, I told him if it's not ACL then let's tape it up and I wasn’t going to let us lose because I think we were up about eight at that point.

"The stupidest thing I could do, though, was go back in because I didn’t know I had three bloody fouls so that was the dumbest thing I could do because I picked up my fourth straight away and then my fifth not long after.

"That was after I told Johny at half-time that he better wake up or I'd be winning MVP here and he sure bloody hell woke up so it was a funny bit of trash talk and then I buggered up my knee only a couple of minutes later so that's what I get for opening my mouth.

"But I was out with that for about eight weeks and it was nothing but bed rest and then obviously celebrating a really successful year, and I still got to go to Canberra (for the National Finals)."

Proud of the local Geraldton talent

Now Hunt is captain for the first time having played in championships where Wundenberg and Ralph have been his skippers previously, and even if he didn’t expect to be playing the minutes he is, he is starring to start 2026.

With Cooper Creek and Joshua Keyes yet to arrive, and Josh Banks injured in the first game, Hunt has held down the fort playing 39.7 minutes a game across the three wins against the Perry Lakes Hawks, South West Slammers and Mandurah Magic.

He's delivering 23.3 points, 10.3 rebounds, 6.7 assists, 2.3 steals and 2.0 blocks as well while enjoying spending more time on the court than ever has with 546-game triple champion Wundenberg.

"It's the most minutes we've ever played together because we usually are both the centre and switch off for minutes," Hunt said.

"So it has been a bit difficult but it just reminds me how much I love Geraldton because so many people are coming up and saying how happy they are to see the locals getting a few wins here.

"In our main rotation so far with the eight or nine guys, six of them are from Geraldton and Verle's from Queensland but he's back again and then Devondrick has come in, but besides that they're all Geraldton boys.

"That's such a good feeling and I was talking to our GM Andrew Horstman about it and he was really excited to get all of our team together, but I told him I was just pumped that some of these local kids are getting a real good crack here.

"Two of our youngest players who are both 18 came in and made bloody big plays against Mandurah in that fourth quarter. I think Levi Owen had the first four points in the fourth and Jarrad Mongoo did a great job on one of the better players in our league in Lachy Bertram.

"They just did a really good job so that gives me a different kind of fire at the moment and I do have to shout Verle out because he's played 40 minutes every game this year aside from the 15 seconds he went off for on the weekend.

"And he doesn’t slow down, he just runs and runs and runs, and how he does it, I've just got no idea. He's such a bloody warrior and it's nice get the mention of the local lads, but if we didn’t have Verle and Tuss at the moment we'd be in a really, really tricky spot."

Building the team for 2026

Coming off the championship triumph last year and it wasn’t in the plans for the Buccaneers to lose Narkle, but having Ralph retire was no surprise and then Nik De Santis returned to Adelaide and Ryan Blanchett is now at Mandurah having moved there to continue his teaching career.

Akeem Springs also hasn’t returned as an import, but ultimately Hunt likes that they have built a squad with three main playmakers in different positions and roles with himself, Verle Williams and Walker.

"We've had a huge turnover with Johny, Sticks (Blanchett) and Nik leaving, and Akeem was a big piece for us last year so that's four real big minutes players there," Hunt said.

"I think we just wanted to have a different balance especially at the wing position and the story with Tuss was that we were asking him about a different player, and he pretty much said that he was available.

"Then once we got him, it was just kind of a build around him sort of team and for the past two or three years we've built around Johny and he's the one with the green light, and the one we're going to and who can carry us.

"This year with Devondrick coming off this big injury, we got Verle back and our position this year has been that we know I'll be a playmaker in the post, Verle can be at the point and then everything will kind of go through Tuss as well and we want him to have the ball every single possession if we can.

"So our thinking was that we have to be really patient to get championship character guys and I think Cooper Creek is a big pick up for us and we know what Keyes is going to bring us, and then we've got young Brendan Redhead coming in who I really like.

"We had Josh Banks and I'm not sure how much longer he's going to be out for but I think the plan was to build around us three being the playmakers, and b ringing those other championship calibre guys in and obviously Mat staying around is so huge for us too.

"He keeps saying every year that when I've got nothing to bring that's when I'll retire, and I've told him that he'll be here until he's 50 because he's always going to have something to bring and that's just who he is, and what he brings in so many ways on and off the court is why he's so beloved."

Calling Devondrick a teammate

Having played against Walker when he was at his best at the Rockingham Flames including the Grand Final of 2022 where Geraldton looked to have it won for two and-a-half quarters before he played a big part in breaking Hunt and the Buccaneers' hearts, he's fully aware of what he brings.

Hunt always felt like Walker would be a dream teammate and now he's loving the way he's finding groove again after an injury he tried play through in 2024, and then missed all of 2025 trying to fully get over.

"Watching Tuss do that was such a big moment for him too after 16 months off of basketball and he's come out and taken his recovery so seriously and it's so great to dialogue with him after I went through my own recovery," Hunt said.

"It's just so cool sharing his mindset and my mindset, and we're just always in dialogue and I've been wanting to play with him ever since I played against him because I just love how he plays and always thought he'd fit our system perfect.

"In my opinion Tuss is one of, if not the best player I've played against and we've played against a lot of good players but if he's not No. 1, I struggle to pick who that would be."

3-0 start to championship defence

It's been an interrupted start to the new season for the Buccaneers with their opening round home game postponed thanks to Cyclone Narelle and then having the bye across the Easter weekend.

They then beat the Perry Lakes Hawks in their home opener and then prevailed in two tough road games last weekend against the Slammers and Magic with Hunt playing just about the entire 120 minutes so far.

"We felt like we were a little bit behind all the other teams who have had much more game experience than we've had and it was strange going to Bunbury where they'd already played three or four games under their belt and we had the one," Hunt said."

"Obviously losing Josh (Banks) in game one kinda hurt us as well so we felt a bit under prepared and Bunbury sure showed their way against us especially for the majority of the game they showed so much more hunger and togetherness, and showed that they had a bit more experience in the season.

"Obviously we're running out without a few of our boys at the moment but how we do it in Gero is we make no excuses and we just have to go out and play, and find ways to win and do whatever it takes to make that happen.

"We were just lucky to get on the other side of the scoreboard with them and against Mandurah on Sunday. I know they're missing about three players as well so when we see them again in a couple of weeks the team structure will be completely different.

"But pumped to get a couple of wins on the road and to start 3-0 and am looking forward to this week now against Cockburn."