Simon's hunting to aid Baggies

Hunt's arrival at The Hawthorns ends a long-running search by Peace to fill a role he believes is crucial to the club's long-term development.

The 44-year-old was chief scout at Southampton before taking up the challenge of joining the Baggies and knows Mowbray from a spell together at Ipswich when the Albion boss was a player and Hunt the head of the Tractor Boys' international scouting network.

One of Hunt's primary roles will be to oversee player research and recruitment at Albion.

Speaking for the first time about the appointment, Peace believes Hunt's arrival will give Mowbray more time to concentrate on coaching.

And he insists his manager is more than comfortable with the arrangement.

"The arrival of Simon Hunt will be very helpful," said Peace. "Tony was part of the consultations and bought into the idea of a sporting and technical director.

"He's a forward thinking manager and liked the idea that we put forward to him when we had his interview. He bought into the concept before he came here.

"Of course, they're not necessarily going to agree on every player – which is very healthy – but what Simon will provide for Tony is an encyclopedic research engine which a traditional manager in this country doesn't have time to do.

"So Simon will become the eyes and ears of the club and will liaise very well with Tony.

"Tony and Simon were item one in our board meeting on Wednesday and we had a three hour session to look ahead and bounced some names around of targets.

"We will try and keep those to ourselves but it underlines the fact that we're looking forwards."