When Albert Hopoate runs out for Canberra against the Dolphins in Wagga Wagga on Saturday his career is still just beginning but the 21-year old has already done so much just to be there at all.
The Raiders winger will be playing just his 18th NRL game and has far more football in front of him than behind him. He is a long way from what he will one day become but he's also come a long way already and therein lies his triumph.
It's very easy to imagine a different path, one where everything he was supposed to have slipped away, where none of this ever happened to him.
When he was a kid that would have been unthinkable. He might be a surprise packet now that he's averaging 161.1 metres per...