Parramatta lock Kenny Edwards had been sacked from two NRL clubs when the penny finally dropped.
An emerging star alongside Jared Waerea-Hargreaves and Kieran Foran at Manly back in 2008, it wasn’t until he was sitting on the couch without a contract while his two mates were dominating first grade, that he realised what an opportunity he’d wasted.
By the end of 2009, in the space of 12 months he’d been cut by Manly and St George Illawarra for disciplinary issues, mostly to do with alcohol.
He was a self-confessed “rat bag”.
“First year out of school training with first grade, I thought I’d already made it when I hadn’t really made it,” Edwards told AAP.
“I was hanging around with the wrong blokes so I lost the opportunity two years in a row.
“I gave league up for a couple of years. 100 per cent, I thought it was over.”
But the nearly three years he spent away from football, allowed Edwards to settle down.
Watching Waerea-Hargreaves and Foran brought back the hunger.
But fatherhood gave Edwards the maturity to seize a lifeline handed to him last season following a chance meeting with respected video analyst Will Badel at a State of Origin match in 2012.
“I went down and watched my cousin James Tamou debut for NSW in Melbourne and I went to a function after and saw Will there,” said Edwards.
“I was with him at Manly and he asked me what I was doing and it just went from there.
“He was going to get me a shot at Penrith but Gus (Phil Gould) turned it down because I hadn’t played much footy over the past few years.
“But when Ricky Stuart signed here at Parramatta last year he got Will as his video analyst, and Will helped me out and got me the opportunity.”
Edwards, now a father of two, is relishing the chance to go head-to-head on Saturday night with Sydney Roosters enforcer Waerea-Hargreaves, one of the men who inspired him.
Last season, the 24-year-old starred for the Eels NSW Cup side, and only second-tier salary cap restraints restricted him to one match.
In 2014 under Brad Arthur, the Junior Kiwis and Australian Schoolboys representative has earned the starting No.13 jersey and a chance to make up for lost time.
“It’s a dream come true.”
