When Ky Willott last played in the Hockey One League, he was an 18-year-old rookie still finding his way to the game's elite senior level.
Three years on, and with the national tournament back up and running for the first time since COVID, the Novocastrian is relishing a completely different role with the NSW Pride.
Having spent the past seven months in Perth training full-time with the Australian Kookaburras squad, Willott entered this year's Hockey One League a much more experienced player.
And with the Pride missing multiple Kookaburras regulars, despite only being 21 Willott has emerged as one of the team's leaders.
"It's been three years since the first [Hockey One League] tournament was run and I've obviously developed in that time," Willott told the Newcastle Herald.
"I was 18 back then and was pretty young coming into the squad. Now I guess I'm more established in NSW, so it's a bit of a different year for me. It's more of a leadership role because there's a few other boys playing in Europe.
"So it's given me a pretty big opportunity to take on some leadership, which I'm enjoying."
Willott returned from Perth on Thursday to play back-to-back home games for NSW over the next week, the first of which is at Sydney Olympic Park on Friday night. The Pride have won their first two games and face the only other undefeated team, Perth Thundersticks, in a top-of-the-table clash.
"I feel the main contenders this year are the Perth Thundersticks or Brisbane Blaze," Willott said.
"They played each other last week and [Perth] got the win. They have five Australian players; a couple of strikers, midfielders and a goalkeeper.
"So they're a bit spread out which makes it a bit harder.
"They're a very strong side and have a new coach this year as well, [David Guest] who played for the Kookaburras. They've got some knowledge there."
While Perth have played an extra game than NSW, Willott bagged a double to help his side to a 4-3 victory over Adelaide last week, and also found the net in their 6-3 win over Melbourne.
"I'm playing with guys I used to play with in under-11s, under-13s," Willott said. "It's a bit of a different team because we're missing fix or six Australian players.
"It's a youthful team and it's pretty fun at the moment because every side walks in thinking, 'they don't have their main players, we're going to get a win here', but that's not the case at all."
Both the men's and women's NSW sides are playing Perth in Sydney on Friday night. The men's hit-off is at 6.30pm, while the women's match follows at 8pm.
Willott's Kookaburras teammate and fellow Norths Hockey Club product Matt Dawson is expected to return from Europe to join the Pride for the finals.
