When Nicho Hynes leads Cronulla on to Brookvale Oval to take on Manly on Sunday he'll do it as the reigning Dally M winner, a State of Origin hopeful and one of rugby league's best and most beloved players.
The 26-year-old's rise in recent years has been nothing short of remarkable and, given his story is one that begins with the Sea Eagles, his journey will full circle this weekend.
It's easy to forget about Hynes's time with Manly. For starters, it was all in the juniors. The Central Coast product played Harold Matthews and SG Ball with the Sea Eagles before putting in three seasons in the old under-20s competition.
If you missed it at the time don't worry, so did nearly everyone else. Watch the old highlights back and there are plenty of fine attacking touches, but Hynes almost seems like a different person. On a lot of the team sheets he's down as "Nicholas" or "Nick" and it's hard to pick him out without the flowing locks he has today.
There are few hints of what he would become. Did he look like a player with a future? Sure, but there are so many of those. Few would have thought what's happened since would be possible.
"He was one of the younger ones and we had an established halves pairing, so through the year he played different positions — a bit like he ended up doing at Melbourne," said David Heath, who coached Hynes for Manly in 2014 and 2015.
"He had a lot of natural ability. That's why Manly were interested in him and that's what we could see in him as a young man.
He had a pretty broad skill set as far as rugby league went. He understood attack, he was able to implement a game plan really well.
"He was always highly respectful and great to deal with. He was realistic about where his abilities were at and always wanted to learn.
"When he went on the field there would be a noted difference. From an attacking perspective, he really added to what we did, even as he played different positions and knowing he hadn't nailed a spot down.
"He was able to deal with that. There were some older boys there who took those halves roles."
Those two older boys were Riley Travers, the team's captain, and Will Pearsall, a good prospect who later played first grade with the Knights. And with a gangly fullback named Tom Trbojevic at the back, there was no place for Hynes in Manly's starting line-up for much of 2015 when the Sea Eagles went all the way to the grand final.
With Hynes acting as the team's interchange weapon, it was a strong side. Trbojevic put up attacking numbers that defy belief (in one game that season he ran for 486 metres with ball in hand) and there were other future first graders in the squad such as Liam Knight, Liam Garner and Jesse Ramien. Manly went deep into the finals, but few gave them a chance against a star-studded North Queensland side in the preliminary final.
But against a Cowboys side containing Viliame Kikau, Kalyn Ponga, Brandon Smith and Coen Hess, it was Hynes who found the winning touch as he kicked a field goal in the final minutes to secure a 25-24 victory and a grand final berth for Manly.
Even back then, when everything was so different, he had the touch when it counted.
"That was him under pressure. He'd already been on and came off and we specifically put him back on for that job," Heath said.
"He was our best at finishing a game if a field goal needed to be kicked. And he handled that pressure.
"He closed that game out for us. it was pretty good to watch."
Manly went down in the grand final to a Penrith side led by Dylan Edwards, Brent Naden, Soni Luke, James Fisher-Harris, Corey Harawira-Naera and Jarome Luai. And Hynes's long journey to the top continued.
He lost much of the next season to injury and left Manly, washing up with the Mackay Cutters in the Queensland Cup.
After two seasons north of the border, Melbourne, who'd kept an eye on him since those Sea Eagles days, brought him into their system and Hynes started on the path he's on now, one which ends with him as the young king of Cronulla who holds the whole rugby league world in his hands.
"I think the path he's taken has helped him. Going up and playing Queensland Cup, not being elevated at a really young age, I think that's benefited him. He went away and learned his craft," Heath said.
"He got in that Melbourne system, which probably assisted him a whole lot. And the path he's taken probably highlights that coming straight out of the younger age groups isn't always the best way to go.
"I didn't stay in touch with him in the five or six years since, so I don't know everything that happened, but I saw him last year. I was coaching Blacktown against Newtown and he came down because of their link with Cronulla and we were chatting.
"I'm not surprised by the esteem he's held in at the moment as a man because we saw that when he was a young man at Manly."
