On Saturday, 23 May 2009, almost two years before the club’s first game, it hosted a famous kick-to-kick which led to one of the great recruiting stories in the AFL.

At the centre of it all was Karmichael Hunt, Brisbane Broncos, Queensland and Australian rugby league player, who had been targeted by inaugural SUNS recruiting and list manager Scott Clayton.

It was a ‘one million to one’ shot which became a reality, and is unveiled in its full glory in a book released this week titled Deal Maker.

As Clayton reveals, Hunt had flown to Melbourne for a meeting with him and a group of AFL heavyweights after a Clayton phone call to Hunt’s manager David Riolo in February 2009, which Riolo originally thought was a prank.

It was all part of a dream which began with former Sydney Swans captain and long-time AFLQ talent manager Mark Browning, who had seen Hunt play a handful of AFL games at Anglican Church Grammar School.

Clayton, forever one to look outside the traditional recruiting ‘box’, was looking to give the start-up SUNS an innovative splash like never before. He sold the dream of Hunt switching codes to first his manager, and then the player himself. It was a challenge and an opportunity like never before, he said.

It didn’t hurt that Hunt’s girlfriend was Emma Harding, sister of Brisbane Lions player Scott Harding. Or that it came with a massive payday.

Hunt, a full-back in rugby league, was a fine athlete and a fierce competitor who could kick and catch. Or ‘mark’, as he soon learned.

Clayton had initially worked on the idea with AFL game development manager David Matthews, later to become inaugural CEO of the GWS Giants, and had involved AFL CEO Andrew Demetriou and his then deputy Andrew Dillon, now AFL CEO.

Demetriou shared the idea with Collingwood champion Nathan Buckley, who at the time was working with the AFL. AFL talent boss Kevin Sheehan and North Melbourne player and Bali bombing survivor Jason McCartney, now head of football at GWS, were also in the loop.

Clayton collected Hunt, Emma Harding and Riolo from Melbourne Airport and drove them to meet the heavyweight group at Parkville.

Buckley was immediately impressed. Hunt could actually kick the ball. He was also taken by his athleticism as he put him through a series of kicking and ground-ball drills.

And the rest, as the saying goes, is history.

The full Hunt story is told in Deal Maker, in which Clayton, one of the most respected figures in AFL recruiting in the past 30 years, shares his remarkable journey through the game.

Originally from Tasmania, Clayton played 10 years and 160 AFL games at Fitzroy from 1981-90 and has been a fixture in recruiting for 35 years, working at Brisbane, the Western Bulldogs, Gold Coast, West Coast, North Melbourne and now the Tasmanian Devils.

He also pulled off the prized capture of Gary Ablett Jnr to headline the inaugural signings of the SUNS, and tells how the deal almost fell over when Ablett got ‘cold feet’ at the prospect of leaving Geelong, where his father was a legend and where he’d shared in two AFL premierships.

Clayton enticed Cairns junior Jarrod Harbrow back from the Western Bulldogs to join the start-up SUNS with the likes of David Swallow, Tom Lynch, Charlie Dixon, Zac Smith and Dion Prestia. And so much more.

Vice-captain of the Tasmanian side that beat Victoria in Hobart in 1990 and a member of the Tasmanian Football Hall of Fame, Clayton received AFL Life Membership in March this year and in July was inducted into the Brisbane Lions Hall of Fame.

Produced in partnership with highly regarded Age football writer Peter Ryan, Deal Maker is exactly what it says on the front cover, an insight into the secret world of AFL recruiting and trading, and the annual AFL trade period.

It’s a must-read for SUNS fans who want to know more than just what happened, but why and how it all happened.