Seven years after his last Waratahs appearance, outside back Andrew Kellaway is ready to show the NSW faithful what he can truly do.
Kellaway is set to pull on the sky blue jersey for the first time in over 2,500 days when the Waratahs face the Highlanders in Sydney on Friday.
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A lot has changed since then, with the former Junior Wallaby travelling the world to learn the skills he needed to live up to his lofty potential.
“An easy way to put it is I think I probably left a boy, and I've come back a man," he explained to Rugby.com.au/WWOS.
“Everyone learns lessons at their own pace and in their own way, and for me, it required going around the world to pick it all up."
The 29-year-old had stints in England, Japan and New Zealand before signing with the Rebels and eventually earning his place in the Wallabies squad.
“Jake Gordon and I were reflecting, and you reflect on your career, and there's a big photo down there of when the boys won in 2014,” Kellaway said.
“I was lucky enough to be in the environment at that point, obviously not playing, but in the environment, so you're reflecting a lot of my happiest rugby memories.
“I definitely wasn't in a space to be the player I wanted to be and to do all that and I needed to go through what I went through to learn that, but a lot of my happiest memories were here.
“I look back now and being back and with some of the younger guys, you find yourself telling stories about what it used to be like, stories under Cheik (Michael Cheika) or playing with club legends…they're such fond memories. You can't remember the bad stuff as easily as you can remember the good stuff, so yeah, it's been great to be back.”
Fellow teammate Max Jorgensen was still finishing high school when Kellaway was debuting for the Waratahs.
However, it's far from a mentor-mentee situation, developing a more 'refreshing' relationship than that.
“I got asked how I’m teaching ‘Jorgo’, and I said, ‘I don’t need to’ he doesn't need me to teach him; he needs me to be his teammate and help him be the best on the field,” he explained.
“It's a completely different relationship, I think, to what people expect it to be, like the old head and the young guy. It is actually really refreshing just to have a teammate, and I think probably for him as well, not to have someone telling him about all his stories about how he stuffed it all up because again, different guys, different lessons, different everything.
“I think it's the cool thing about Rugby."
With a host of Wallabies in the backline, Kellaway has no qualms about where he plays.
It again shows the growth of the man who welcomed his second child at the beginning of the year and is already working part-time for the foreign exchange company Ebury.
"When I got here the first thing I said to Dan (McKellar) when we caught up was I've got no preference where I play. My opinion on it is that the captain goes down with the ship, and it's the coach's ship, so if he wants to pick me number eight, then you just nod your head, and you do it,” he said.
“It’s a little bit of a development for me personally because in the past, having a preference has really been something I've stuck by and pushed quite hard, but this is just a refreshing place to be. You look around the room and I don't feel entitled to a preference because there's so many good people in the room.”
