When Matthew Wade made a century for Clarence against Glenorchy in the 2002/03 TCA first grade grand final at the age of 15, cricket followers around Hobart immediately took notice.
His opponents in that game, played on Clarence's home ground of Bellerive Oval, included a near state-strength attack lead by Luke Butterworth and ABC Grandstand's very own Brett Geeves, who remembers the innings very clearly.
"For his age he was exceptional," the genial ex-quick said.
"After a string of lbw shouts early in the innings he was flawless.
"Because he was so young he didn't have the power he does now but he had all the shots and plenty of patience. He looked an extremely good prospect."
To think of Wade's rise from precocious talent to the nation's pre-eminent keeper-batsman as a seamless one would be a mistake.
In the 10 years since then there have been hurdles to test the character of anyone, let alone a sports-loving teenager.
A cancer diagnosis at the age of 16 turned fairytale rise into a potentially life-threatening nightmare.
His father, ex-Hawthorn footballer and AFL Tasmania chief executive Scott Wade, took up the story on Grandstand on day three of the first Test against Sri Lanka.
"A cancer diagnosis for one of your children is as bad as it gets for a parent," he said.
"Maybe it was worse for us. We were worried about him losing his life. Matthew was worried about losing his hair.
"All I could do was give him the advice I've given him as a sportsman, that is to take one day at a time."
Thankfully the cancer treatment was successful and Wade was able to return to his first sporting love, cricket. He was soon to reach another crossroads.
By the end of the 2006/07 season Tasmania's cricket stocks had never been higher. Basking in the glory of a much-cherished, first-ever Sheffield Shield win, the state had Sean Clingeleffer with a century to his name in the shield Sinal as its incumbent keeper.
The Tigers also had another startling talent, the polished gloveman and gifted stroke player Tim Paine, moving quickly through the ranks.
It presented Wade with a common gloveman's dilemma. Two keepers into one place doesn't go, let alone three.
Of his move to Melbourne to play for Victoria he told me simply, "I knew if I wanted to play for Australia I had to go.
"I had the opportunity to stay at home and play as a batsman, but I wanted to keep.
"It's the best decision I've made in my life so far."
Whilst his career has, despite its often difficult pathway, moved ever onwards his Tasmanian contemporaries have themselves also felt the role fate and luck can play in a career.
Clingeleffer faded off the scene through the 2007/08 season and Paine, Wade's one-time neighbour from the Hobart seaside suburb of Lauderdale, has spent the best part of the last two years recovering from multiple operations to repair a finger broken in a TV exhibition game, a highly promising international career on hold for the moment.
Fate and timing have played their part in Wade's career too.
Looking out across what is literally his home ground, when asked what it felt like to be playing a Test match here after all he's been through he thought, then replied "it's pretty amazing."
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