Perhaps it is the club's working class ethic. Maybe it is the ideals of mateship and meeting every challenge head on, that the Mowbray Cricket Club can claim responsibility for having bred into Ricky Ponting at a young age, that has got him where he is today.
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Some of the stalwarts of the Mowbray club who played a role in Ponting's development as a cricketer and man reminisced yesterday at Invermay Park, where the cricket journey started for a young Rocherlea boy who dreamed of one day playing for his country.
Ian Young coached Ponting as a 10-year-old at Mowbray and recognised the undoubted talent that he had even at that early age.
Young arranged a Kookabura sponsorship contract for Ponting.
"Ricky became probably the youngest player in Australia to be contracted and it was obvious even then that he had a special talent," Young said.
He said that it was Ponting's steel and common sense, and his family's strength in never letting him get ahead of himself, that kept his feet firmly on the ground.
"Ricky Ponting as captain of Australia will still be the same Ricky Ponting when he comes back to Launceston."
Ponting has credited the likes of Mowbray's Brad Jones and Mick Sellers and others at the club as the mentors for his cricket and character development.
Jones said that Ponting was fortunate to have such experienced State-level cricketers at the club at the stage when he was learning the game.
"He had a mindset at an early age when he scored five centuries in a week in the under-13 carnival that said he was going to achieve and stand out as something special," Jones said.
Mick Sellers said those who were at the club at the time would like to think they not only taught Ponting lessons about cricket but also lessons about life in general.
"It was tough cricket in those days - a hard man's game. He learnt that and he has taken it with him into the Test arena," Sellers said.
"I gave Ricky his first bat when he was selected to play his first A grade game and now he's done the same thing and given my son his first bat, so it's been reciprocated."
Jones remembers the young Ponting sitting in the dressing room with his cricket gear on watching and listening those A grade cricketers who were his heroes.
"It has turned around a fair bit now," Jones said.
"I know who's whose hero now. It's Ricky who is our hero."
