Before legendary Essendon coach Kevin Sheedy was the architect of Dreamtime at the 'G, football's ideas man was a wily back pocket plumber.
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It was through those eyes - while initially starting out at Richmond - that Sheedy first spotted an unassuming aboriginal teenager from Launceston up ahead off the Tigers' half-back flank.
Derek Peardon piqued Sheedy's interest and not just because the unique build produced super quick speed unheard of in that era.
While the veteran player and long-serving coach combined a career worth 930 games, Richmond's first - and Tasmania's second - aboriginal in the VFL only lasted the 20 appearances.
But the influence of five years spent with Peardon at Punt Road - including four in the seniors - stayed in the mind for four decades, sparking the concept behind Richmond and Essendon embracing Dreamtime at the 'G game that began in 2005.
"Sheedy does reckon I inspired him to do that - he told me," Peardon says.
"He went from meeting me, to get and meet other [indigenous] players and travel around the Top End to those little towns, to the Dreamtime at the 'G. So I am very proud of my part."
The journey to the MCG was not only his first on the hallowed turf in 44 years, but the first back in Melbourne.
He was welcomed home by 83,804 supporters in an emotional coming out.
The elusive Peardon had been knocking the advances from the Tigers back for six years until his sister Annette, a Tasmanian reconciliation advocate, finally intervened.
"She rang Richmond up to book us in otherwise I would have said no again - so it was a homecoming," he says.
"I am the type of person who keeps to himself and have always been a bit of a loner. So walking out was a bit scary to be honest. I haven't been used to that sort of a crowd for years."
How Peardon first got to Richmond is another story.
The 68-year-old was born on Flinders Island - only something Peardon was unsure of until government papers confirmed that - but his earliest memories were a few more kilometres south on Cape Barren Island, living in a tent and eating wallaby.
"On Cape Barren, I had this little plastic football when I was four and I'd kick it day in, day out," he says.
Intertwined with the stolen generation, Peardon's mother copped three years' "hard labour" for both his and his sister's neglect.
He never saw his mum again after being awoken in the middle of the night by authorities to move the seven-year-old into a Launceston orphanage.
"If I hadn't gone to that home, I have often thought about it would I have gone that far?" Peardon says.
"Would I have played football or would I have stayed on Cape Barren?
"I just don't know, but I think about it a lot.
"I hated the boys' home, but sometimes I think it might've been for the best."
Peardon first attended Youngtown Primary School and later Kings Meadows High School, where he was picked in the Tasmanian under-16 schoolboys squad.
The wingman tied for the best player at the West Australian carnival in 1964.
Or like he once told writer Martin Flanagan in 2015, an authority on all things Tasmanian, "it was like being No.1 pick in the draft today".
But Peardon's time on the ground would prove fleeting.
"I didn't play every week. It was up to the people at the home whether I did or not. That's how it was," he says.
It was still enough to grab the attention of St Kilda talent scouts that brought the precocious talent to the club on January 13, 1966.
Three other clubs were aware of his arrival that included Richmond, who snuck Peardon - then just 15 - to a Sunday morning seniors training session.
So not even an audience with Latrobe's own Darrel Baldock - and soon to be St Kilda premiership captain - could sway the orphanage's superintendent, who had the only say on Peardon's future.
"But I always say that St Kilda is my second side just because I wouldn't have got to Melbourne," he says.
Peardon came through the fourths (under-17s) and in his third season, still just 17, debuted in the seniors off the bench against Melbourne in the same year as playing in the Tigers' under-19s and reserves.
That year he also clashed with warts-and-all under-19 coach Ray 'Slug' Jordan.
A dropped mark that led to a Collingwood goal earned a racist spray that Peardon still can't forget.
"He called me every name under the sun," he says.
Back and knee injuries ensured Peardon was never able to break up the famous centreline of Francis Bourke, Billy Barrot and Dick Clay.
He played 10 games in a row before hurting his back in a contest at training against Clay, missing the next nine, playing 10 more until he first did his knee.
"I played about 20 years of football all up and I reckon three and a half of them were injuries," he says.
That was it at Richmond.
Years after playing his last match that included five brilliant seasons at City-South, another at North Hobart and years playing in the bush, Peardon had six operations on the one knee.
"I think I was too quick," he says, "but as my sister always says, my body wasn't ready when I was 18 or 19."