He’d had a few chats with Port Adelaide but genuinely did not know whether he would be heading to South Australia, Victoria, NSW, Queensland, Western Australia or back to Hobart to resume a budding junior career that had seen him sparkle with the Mariners, Devils and Allies.

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Visiting the starry-eyed midfielder at his Beauty Point home, it was impossible not to fall under the spell of his infectious enthusiasm.

“Just getting my foot in the door at an AFL club I’d be happy with,” he said. “I’d settle for any of them, no worries about that. It’s what I’ve based my whole life around.”

Days later he was selected at pick 50 by Essendon.

Unfortunately for Sam Lonergan, being drafted to Windy Hill in 2005 was the AFL equivalent of being stationed in Hiroshima in 1945.

With hindsight, his observation “I don’t know what the next year of my life is going to hold” would prove eerily prophetic.

Ultimately it wasn’t the next year that Lonergan’s footy path hit the rocks but seven years later when he became one of the 34 Essendon players embroiled in the club’s illegal supplements program.

It cost him 14 months of an AFL career which ultimately ended in 2013 after 79 appearances for Essendon and two for his childhood favourite Richmond.

The AFL’s loss would be the TSL’s gain.

Lonergan returned to Launceston, the club he had joined at the ripe old age of 11 and debuted for just four years later.

He had initially arrived at Windsor Park from the Beauty Point Tigers who he had joined as a six-year-old playing against boys twice his age.

The former Beaconsfield Primary, Exeter High and Launceston College student went on to captain the Allies to a resounding success in the Rising Stars Cup, claiming five goals in a stunning performance against Victoria, earning all-Australian under-18 honours and becoming the first Mariners player to claim back-to-back best-and-fairest awards.

Having also proven versatile in Mathew Armstrong’s Devils team, Lonergan entered the AFL as the pick of a Tassie crop which also included future four-time premiership defender Grant Birchall, Todd Grima, Sam Iles and future Australian Test cricketer Matthew Wade.

The 2006 AFL record introduced Lonergan to the competition with the glowing praise: “A hard-working midfielder, he is quick and knows how to kick goals.”

He would kick 39 across those 81 games before returning to the Blues in October 2015.

His World Anti-Doping Agency ban prevented Lonergan taking charge until after the 2016 season but his impact since then has been immense.

Leading a crop of young talent oozing potential and hanging on his every word, the player-coach has overseen a remarkable progression.

In Round 5 back in April, I reported on Launceston hosting Clarence. The Roos won the game by a bigger gulf than the eventual 38-point margin might suggest.

Lonergan found plenty of positives for his developing team, pointing out that he had fielded five 17-year-olds with 19-year-olds Brodie Palfreyman and Simon Vandervelde among his best players.

“I still believe this footy club is in a fantastic spot and couldn’t be prouder of what the players and club are working towards,” he said.

Talking to his young charges in the rooms afterwards, Lonergan predicted how different the scenario would be when half-tackles and missed passes started hitting their marks.

That destiny arrived when the same two sides were reunited in the second week of the finals.

A week after ending Glenorchy’s premiership defence, Launceston returned to Bellerive Oval and repeated the dose for the venue’s home club.

“We’ve known the whole year we could do this, we just had to bide our time and continue to work on things we needed to – now we’re getting the rewards,” Lonergan said after the 33-point victory.

One of those rewards was another return to Bellerive for Saturday’s preliminary final against Lauderdale. It proved one hurdle too far as the physicality of Darren Winter’s men and a third consecutive away final combined to end Launceston’s fairytale season.

A proud Lonergan reflected: “We’ve had a group that from the start were eager to listen and willing to learn.”

Modesty prevented the player-coach adding that the group also had the ideal man to listen to.

All the signs suggest that next season will see the Blues continue to improve – especially if Lonergan can entice his former Mariners, Devils and Glenelg teammate Mitch Thorp to the party. The former Devonport coach is among Lonergan’s biggest fans, having predicted earlier this season that he will make Launceston the next powerhouse of the State League.

Now 30 and a married father-of-two, Lonergan doesn’t look much different to the 18-year-old I interviewed in 2005, although it’s doubtful whether he could still get away with the same baggy jeans.

The fact that his most requested Google search is “Sam Lonergan girlfriend” suggests he has kept his looks rather well.

Footy didn’t exactly deliver what that starry-eyed teenager expected.

​But perhaps someone who has endured such a windy road is best qualified to steer a straight path ahead.