The Cats were well beaten by the Magpies in round 19 but, against fellow top-four side the Western Bulldogs, reversed their fortunes in dramatic fashion by humbling the Dogs by 101 points.
“It was a bit of a pride thing,” Hunt said after the massive win.
“We’ve developed a proud culture of the way we want to go about our footy and that’s being hard at the contest, tackling well and defending well and in every area we got smashed against Collingwood last week.
“Tonight we really wanted to come out and set ourselves back on the right track and I think we did that.”
Hunt said an honest “pow-wow” among players and coaches following the loss to the Pies had led to Saturday night’s improved performance.
“We sort of went through everything that needed to be fixed up,” he said.
“Tonight, by no means, was the perfect game. There’s plenty of things we need to improve on ... [but] tonight we did what we needed to do.”
Hunt was part of a different looking Cats' back six, which was without key big men Harry Taylor and Tom Lonergan.
One of the Cats’ few small defenders, the powerfully-built left-footer has been in superb form in recent weeks. On Saturday night, he kept Bulldogs skipper Brad Johnson goalless and to just nine disposals.
Even Hunt is surprised at how successful his comeback season from a knee reconstruction has been.
“Everyone sort of said early days with my reco that I was way ahead of schedule and that everything was going well but I didn’t realise how good it was actually feeling,” he said.
“I just thought they were saying that just to keep my spirits up. I’ve been saying all year that the moment you think you’re going all right is when you’re going to play like shit, so I’ve just been keeping it pretty low-key.”
And after missing out on Geelong’s 2009 premiership success, the 10-year Cat is hungry for more.
“Sitting up in that coaches’ box and watching the guys win another premiership . . . while I was happy for them it was a bitter pill to swallow not being a part of it,” he said.
“But it’s just one of those things where all I can is do my best to help the team to get back to where we were last year. We’ve got five or six weeks to go.”
