Dal Santo left town for the Saints the week after finishing year 12. The area’s TAC Cup side, the Bendigo Pioneers, was less than a decade old in the years he was on the team.

“One of the challenges of country rep teams is [the players] come from everywhere: from Mildura and Swan Hill, the area is so broad,” he says. “But that was a fantastic time. We ended up losing the grand final when I was 17, and got drafted a couple of months later. It was a successful period, and got to play with some great players. But you’re still unsure if you’re any good as an individual footballer and whether you can play in the AFL.”

Dal Santo recalls travelling to Melbourne to play against Chris Judd, and not knowing who he was. These days, he notes that any footy-playing kid in Bendigo would know who the most prominent under-18 hotshots were, thanks to an AFL media ecosystem of which he is a part.

“It was always a big eye-opener,” he says. “It felt like you were on the other side of the world when you’d leave Bendigo.

“Football in the city is a big deal because there’s more of it. But when I grew up in the country, football was everything.”