TO DESCRIBE Eva Hunter as a woman of few words would be a gross understatement.
If she ever comes across a donkey, its hind legs would remain safely attached.
But should the Wigan player attempt to tackle or run at the poor equine, well that would be an altogether different story.
Hunter’s nerves are such that public speaking is pretty much a non-starter. When she received the Woman of Steel award last October, it was coach Denis Betts on stage with her to say a few words instead.
And it’s not uncommon for that to manifest itself quite seriously before games of rugby too – quite remarkably, when she’s this damn good at it.
This was a full demonstration of why Hunter is the complete backrower – a ferocious tackler, a runner of hard and true lines, with devastating pace and intelligence too.
She becomes – to the best of my knowledge – the first woman to ever score four tries at Wembley, and each one of those touchdowns showed her class.
The first was largely crafted on her inside, but demonstrated her sheer pace – she may be a forward but few are the centres, wingers or fullbacks who can keep with her in a footrace.
Hunter showed that again with her second, plus real smartness to identify a potential opening in front of her as she ran off Jenna Foubister.
Her hat-trick try was the least sophisticated – a hard crash over softened try-line defence which just didn’t have the capacity to resist her raw power.
Then all Hunter’s physical attributes combined for her fourth as she ran onto a pass with such force that Zoe Harris couldn’t cling on, then ducked under a desperate challenge from Leah Burke coming across.
Perhaps her best moment of the match wasn’t even among the tries though, but when, late in the first half, she showed exceptional footwork to step away in turn from Harris and Amy Hardcastle, then get an offload away to Grace Banks, who was denied wide out.
Foubister was given the official player-of-the-match award and the half no doubt played a huge part in Wigan’s dominance, helping them make full use of the wider pitch, their superior pace leaving St Helens with the dilemma of either defending too narrow and letting them in wide, or spreading out and leaving gaps for the Warriors to go directly through.
But that was surely a decision made to allow Hunter to avoid post-match broadcast media duties, because there is no doubt who the star of this show was.
The most frightening thing of all is that the Wigan St Judes and Orrell St James product is still just 20 – with an attitude, by all accounts, to want to get better and better.
Last season she scored in 13 consecutive matches, eclipsing the club record of eleven previously held by Steve Ella, Martin Offiah and Sam Tomkins.
When you’re surpassing Offiah, it’s fair to say you’ve gone about as far as you can go in Wigan.
Hunter is a potential superstar who can be among the world’s best which, sadly, means playing with the world’s best in Australia.
NRLW clubs will no doubt be aware of her talent, and should show serious interest after this autumn’s World Cup, where Hunter will be key if England are to be competitive.
The only question is whether she would have the confidence to move across to the other side of the world?
Let’s hope she takes the plunge – and smashes it like anything else in her way.