Reds bank on O'Connor, Hunt for Super Rugby revival

SYDNEY (Reuters) - The Queensland Reds will bring Wallaby James O'Connor back to Australia and former rugby league international Karmichael Hunt back to the 15-man game for next season, the Super Rugby team said on Friday. The backline duo were included in a Reds squad for next year that the 2011 champions hope will reinvigorate the organisation after a miserable season in which they lost 11 of their 15 matches to finish third bottom of the standings. There is an element of risk in both signings, however, with O'Connor's off-field disciplinary problems posing a potential threat to the culture of the team, while Hunt has only played a brief spell in union with French club Biarritz in 2009. There has never been any doubting either player's talent, though. New Zealand-born Hunt, 27, has spent the last four years in Australian Rules after a rugby league career in which he scored 53 tries in 125 games for the Brisbane Broncos and played 11 times for Australia. A powerful centre with Biarritz, the Reds will be hoping Hunt has the sort of impact Israel Folau - another former rugby league international and Australian Rules convert - has had with the New South Wales Waratahs over a three-year contract. O'Connor, now 24, was the second youngest Wallaby ever when he made his test debut as a teenager in 2008 and went on to win 44 caps at fullback, on the wing and then at flyhalf for last year's British and Irish Lions series. Being escorted out of Perth airport by police after a test last year, however, was the straw that broke the camel's back for the Australian Rugby Union, who tore up his contract and effectively sent him into exile in Europe. Back in his home state, O'Connor will be reunited with a close friend in flyhalf Quade Cooper as well as coach Richard Graham, although his relations with his former Western Force boss are reported to be somewhat cooler. Graham has managed to retain his job despite the miseries of last season but will need O'Connor and Hunt to help Cooper and scrumhalf Will Genia spark the one highly-vaunted Reds attack back into life if he is to survive another year. The Reds are one of the best-supported sides in Super Rugby - they attracted crowds in excess of 30,000 to Lang Park even in the depths of their form slump last season - and need a significant turnaround to keep the membership levels high. They have also had to fund the contracts of both marquee recruits without any help from the ARU, who would usually chip in for high-profile potential Wallabies. The Reds lost utility backs Mike Harris and Ben Lucas, prop Jono Owen, wingers Dom Shipperley, Rod Davies and Aidan Toua as well as promising young fullback Jonah Placid at the end of last season. They have, however, retained the services of Fijian centre Samuela Kerevi, who impressed at the end of the last campaign after making the step up from the wider training squad. They have also signed New Zealand-born Japan international loose forward Hendrik Tui and another rugby league convert in 19-year-old flyhalf Duncan Paia'aua. (Reporting by Nick Mulvenney, editing by Amlan Chakraborty)