Scott Gullan: Unlike other troubled, famous Eagles — Adam Hunter couldn’t shake his demons

Ben Cousins was the poster boy for the downfall of West Coast before his remarkable life turnaround. Adam Hunter’s tragic death is the latest example that not every Eagle was as lucky.

Ben Cousins and his killer smile wowing the audiences on Dancing With The Stars last year was further confirmation of the Brownlow Medallist’s remarkable life turnaround.

He’d been the poster boy for many things over his much-celebrated journey but at the top of the tree was being the face of the West Coast Eagles downfall.

The high-flying Eagles were the toast of the AFL during their golden era, culminating in an epic one-point victory over Sydney in the 2006 Grand Final, before it all came tumbling down amid drugs scandals and cover-ups.

Cousins hit rock bottom the quickest and took more than 15 years to recover. Unfortunately on Wednesday morning, the football world was reminded that not everyone is lucky enough to come out the other side.

Adam Hunter was found dead on Wednesday morning in WA.

Adam Hunter kicked a crucial goal late in the ‘06 GF to deliver the Eagles their third flag but after 151 games he was forced into retirement in 2009 due to injury.

The demons of his time living in the fast lane in Perth – he had previous drug possession charges – never left him and unlike Cousins, he could never shake them.

When his body was found in Bunbury, two hours south of Perth, the reaction of many in WA wasn’t shock or surprise, more reflective anger at the curse of the good-time Eagles.

As one observer said when looking back at that premiership era: “It’s more about the cleanskins, there might have been about six of them. All the rest were dabbling, or regular, or in trouble.

“I think all clubs have their issues but theirs were just more extreme but they kind of didn’t look hard enough.

“I think they knew if they looked, they knew exactly what they’d find so they chose not to look.”

The AFL did look but the outcome of its special investigation by William Gillard QC were kept under lock and key until the Herald Sun revealed the explosive findings of blatant illicit drug abuse back in 2017.

By then Cousins had already been in jail multiple times as he battled drug addiction. It wasn’t until a seven-month stint behind bars in 2020 – the sixth time he’d been to jail in 13 years – that he decided to go clean and turn his life around.

His on-ball partner during the glory days Daniel Kerr had gone down a similar road, jailed for setting fire to a house owned by his parents in 2021 and narrowly avoiding more jail time for repeated domestic violence offences last year.

During that court hearing it was revealed Kerr was suffering from paranoid schizophrenia after years of mental health and drug issues.

Daniel Chick famously cut off his finger to continue his playing career which ended in 2007 after 252 games with Hawthorn and West Coast.

In a grand final-eve interview in 2015, Chick claimed the Eagles had a toxic culture of prescription and illicit drug abuse and cover-ups.

He was fined $900 in 2019 after police found the drug ice and a glass pipe in his car and then earlier this year he was again convicted of drug possession, this time uncovered after police spotted him sleeping in a car.

Ben Cousins leaves court in 2017. Picture: AAP Image/Richard Wainwright

Chad Fletcher faced charges in 2010. Picture: AAP Image/Paul Miller

There were two key incidents shortly after the 2006 premiership which first started to sound the alarm bells.

Defender Chad Fletcher almost died on the Eagle’s end-of-season trip to Las Vegas following the premiership win. It was reported he stopped breathing after choking on vomit following an all-night bender. (In 2010 he was charged with possessing cocaine).

Then the following year club legend and hero to many, in particular Cousins, two-time premiership star Chris Mainwaring died of a drug overdose.

But club bosses including long-time CEO Trevor Nisbett and coach John Worsfold, pushed on hoping that more success would cover over the off-field dramas.

They have since said they had no idea the extent of the drug problem but with each passing year more details have begun filtering out about what had been allowed to go on.

In 2017 a court heard rookie-listed West Coast forward Ben Sharp, who came to the club via the rookie draft at the end of 2004, explain what was required for young players to be accepted at the Eagles.

“I had to use cocaine,” he said. “I thought it was a way to get in with the boys, so I used coke.”

In December 2014, Sharp’s “party lifestyle”, which developed into a $200-a-day ice habit, led to a shocking crime where he was involved in robbing a cash carrier of $287,000 using a shotgun and pistol.

In handing down a nine-year jail sentence, Victorian County Court Judge Geoffrey Chettle said:

“You claimed it was part of the culture that existed at the football club at the time. You claim that senior members of the club required you to be in or out — either you used (drugs) or you left,” Judge Chettle said.

“You chose the former.”

Sadly, that was the same path Adam Hunter went down.

Originally published as Scott Gullan: Unlike other troubled, famous Eagles — Adam Hunter couldn’t shake his demons