I've been saying since the first request for a release to let him go. I really like Flanno and what he is trying to build, I just hope he doesn't chose this hill to die on. It wont end well.
Yeah I agree with you and I too would have just let the sook go and lived with the consequences and tried to rebuild this year. Kyle at 7 and whoever floated to the top as 6. I would have copped that and a lower position on the ladder for the freed up salary cap space and the chance to hunt (pardon the pun!) some better forwards and potentially a 6 or 7 that was a better match for our club.
Having said that, I really do understand why Flanno felt like he had to keep him here in his first year. I think most coaches would have done the same thing in his position. We were a better chance of moving up the ladder with him in the team. So I get that. However I would stripped the captaincy off him for the shameful way he behaved last year and given it to someone like S'ua. Then pressure the crap out of Hunt's manager. Ben wants out? Well go and find us a replacement.
I really feel for Flanno in year one. He had a massive mountain to climb. Trying to undo over a decade of bewildering incompetence by a board that had left us with possibly the worst roster in the NRL and made us a destination that no player worth his salt wants to come to. I think poor Flanno has been stuck this year with a lot of round pegs and square holes scenarios and he has just tried to do his best with the terrible roster he inherited. I haven't agreed with every decision he has made but for the most part I understand why he made them (with the exception of continually picking Lawrie).
As for Hunt, what a waste of an era this has been. The club threw all their eggs into one basket for a soulless imposter whose "wonderful" stats completely cover over the fact that he is a terrible game manager, has a weak kicking game and is a piss weak captain who fails in every single clutch moment he is presented with. I can literally remember only one game in the entire time he has been here that he has genuinely led from the front and that was this years Melbourne game. One game in how many years?!?!?!?!?
But the commentators will always talk up his Origin moments and his misleading try assists stats.
I doubt there's anything to the drama that the media is drumming up after the dressing room scenes the other day but I will never be sad to see the back of Hunt if something happens over the offseason. Don't let the door hit you on the way out, Ben.