IT'S A miracle Jack Watts remains such a positive person.





Four years after his infamous debut, people are still searching for the key to instantly unlock his talent.





Jobe Watson – whose career was a similar slow-burn – is the latest to catch up with Watts.





Mick Malthouse did so last season.





Neil Craig has been in his ear since pre-season started.





Watts attracts such support because everyone who comes into contact with him likes him.





People want to help. People want to offer an opinion. People want Watts to work.





But you can't help thinking football has not been that kind to Watts.





Sadly, few could blame him for wanting a fresh start.





After all, his first start went down in history for the wrong reasons.





It was Queen's Birthday 2009. Watts was ready to play. The regime had made sure that was the case.





One story has it that the late club president Jim Stynes gave a directive to have him ready for that game.





Another was that Watts' hard work made it easy for anyone to make the case for him to play.





In hindsight, it seems incredible that he played with Brighton Grammar against Melbourne Grammar just six weeks before his debut with Melbourne.





After all, the game had changed since Essendon's Dustin Fletcher combined school and AFL careers 16 years earlier.









Nic Naitanui and Watts during the 2008 NAB AFL U18 Championships. Picture: AFL Media





However Watts had performed well in the VFL, too, in 2009.





Former Casey Scorpions teammates remember Watts being enthusiastic, a harder worker than he ever received credit for.





He was also one of the boys, a popular person at any level.





There was also the added bonus of Watts' marketing value at the Demons.





Melbourne had won just one game in its first 10 and needed an injection of youth. Watts was the perfect candidate to put bums on seats.





Even with that background, the main discussion around his selection became whether it was ideal for him to debut at the MCG against Collingwood – a team on its way to a top-four berth – or whether an off-Broadway debut would be better.





After all, Watts had an accounting exam to sit the day after the public holiday.





When then-Melbourne coach Dean Bailey spoke at a pre-game press conference, with Watts alongside him, the decision - whatever the background - was clear.





"It's an important opportunity for us to wheel out our No.1 draft pick to play on Monday," Bailey said.





For a club who talked the talk of easing him in, the words were a dead giveaway that wasn't to be the case.









From then on, no complaints about Watts being constantly referred to as the No.1 draft pick could come from the club again.





An interview with The Footy Show leading into the game and then a text message from president Jim Stynes imploring fans to turn up to see the No.1 pick confirmed he was the star attraction.





A football official close to the selection decision summed up the feeling: "[I'm] not sure if you ever know if someone is ready mentally to play in those sorts of games or not but it was a big risk and some would say maybe it didn't come off."





Another confidant said the messages from the club at the time were too mixed.





On one hand, Watts was being made a poster boy. On the other hand, every message was about him just doing his best and that there were no miracles expected.





In the former official's view that approach wanted the best of both worlds – exposure AND not too much pressure.





"I think the club was maybe too wary of protecting him rather than just throwing him in and going with the hype," he said.





He argues it took the edge off Watts – a relaxed character any time of the day.





A former teammate suggests Watts thought he was ready, but he probably wasn't.





Watts' words to The Footy Show suggested however he was less confident than he appeared.





"Jumping into bed last night I just ran through what could happen, just the events of the day and got a bit jittery but I'll be all right come game day," Watts said.





When the camera returned to the studio after the interview, then-Hawthorn hard man Campbell Brown was asked whether he would target Watts if the Hawks were playing Melbourne.





"Yep", Brown said.





Demons legend Ron Barassi with Watts at his jumper presentation. Picture: AFL Media





INSIDE the Melbourne rooms before the game, the atmosphere was positive.





Former Melbourne champion John Lord presented the talented 18-year-old schoolboy Watts with the No.4 jumper as a crowded room decked in suits and scarves and football jumpers looked on.





Lord had worn the jumper in four premierships. The club's most famous figure, Norm Smith, had worn it in four too.





The former champion had met Watts' family and been taken by what nice people they were and particularly how excited his sisters, Stephanie and Kate, were for their brother.





As Lord wished him luck, Collingwood players were wandering around the opposition rooms just metres away.





A few stopped, decked out in boots, socks pulled up and watched the presentation to Watts on closed circuit television.





Nothing was said but the Magpies' expressions matched that of a bunch of hungry outlaws eyeing a busy camp from the ridge.





Collingwood coach Mick Malthouse told the players pre-game of the revelry he had noted emanating from the Demons' rooms as he walked past. It was, he said, their Grand Final.





Watts runs out with his Melbourne teammates ahead of his debut against Collingwood. Picture: AFL Media





IT WAS not hard to see why Watts had become such a poster boy for Melbourne.





The club has a long history of looking for saviours in the post-Norm Smith era: 'Diamond' Jim Tilbrook, Carl Ditterich, Ron Barassi, Kelvin Templeton, Peter Moore, David Schwarz, Joseph Gutnick, Jim Stynes, Jack Watts, Tom Scully, Mark Neeld and now, even in his infancy at the club, Peter Jackson.





Even ex-premier and Hawthorn supporter Jeff Kennett staked his claim to join that list this week.





Watts fitted the bill.





His NAB AFL Under-18 Championships had been very good as a 17-year-old.





He was All Australian, bolting from schoolboy football into first-round calculations. His draft camp results had been outstanding for a boy his size, quick and agile.





But what really stamped him as the messiah was the pack mark he'd taken for Vic Metro in front of goal with 20 seconds to go against Vic Country. Watts slotted the match-winner, his fourth for the day, to lead the team to a three-point victory.





No one thought to mention that the 194cm Watts had taken a pack mark amid four Vic Country boys: Riley Milne, a 192cm defender who would be rookie listed by the Hawks and played two games at the end of 2009 and one at the end of 2011; 182cm pair Steele Sidebottom and Jamason Daniels; and 175cm Ryan McKenzie.





No one does that in marketing, do they?





So excited were the Demons about landing him, and so desperate for some bounce in the bottom line, that even before his name was called out the Herald Sun had wind of their intention and Watts was a household name.





Watts surrounded by Magpie opponents during his AFL debut in 2009. Picture: AFL Media





NOTHING needed to be said at Collingwood.





They were maturing as a team and wanting to knock off those sides below them with a ruthless efficiency.





It started the first quarter with intent.





Watts entered the arena 6min 19sec into the game.





Few could have predicted what happened next. The ball sat up in front of Watts and, as has become his trait, he looked to evade the tacklers with a laconic step.





After all such a move had worked in evading his Melbourne Grammar opponent Alex Keath six weeks earlier.





What hit him simultaneously at this moment right in front of the members stand was a trio comprising Collingwood captain Nick Maxwell, defender Heath Shaw and veteran Shane O'Bree.

A person sitting above the incident in the Melbourne's coach's box remembers feeling for the kid at precisely that moment.





A teammate in the stands immediately saw the symbolism in the incident.





There was not a murmur in the Magpies' coach's box. Everyone just knew.





Another saviour had been taken down.





Watts earned the free kick and did not look ruffled but the tackle took on a life beyond its reality.





Watts ended the game in front of 61,287 with three kicks, five handballs and a behind.





Those were better statistics than Jonathan Brown, Nick Riewoldt, Gary Ablett junior, Lance Franklin and Watson achieved in their debut but the Demons lost by 11 goals.





And because of the hype created, the 18-year-old's elevation suddenly became the subject of much discussion.





Watts leaves the field after his first game. Picture: AFL Media





Football great Leigh Matthews would describe Watts as a schoolboy footballer, an opinion he offered again on radio just weeks ago. The tag has never really left him.





When Nic Naitanui, the second pick performed too, the conditions necessary for a distorted perspective to take hold were complete.





Watts' Vic Metro teammate and friend, Tom Lynch (now with Adelaide), had begun calling him 'Naitanui' during the Under 18 championships as the two were touted as the possible quinella.





"[It's] all a bit of a joke at the moment," Watts said at the time.





You would imagine the gag has since worn thin.





As time went on, some players at Melbourne began to think teammates were being gifted games on the basis of potential, a dangerous practice for any club although somewhat understandable given Melbourne's plight.





No one thought any less of Watts. No one ever says a bad word about him.





But the spotlight gradually became a blowtorch.





Even Watts admits at 17 he just played the game because he loved it but now he realises that to succeed in the AFL you need something more.





Sadly, that's probably becoming right.





"It doesn't matter what you have done or who you are. It just doesn't matter. Every bloke is out there fighting for their life and if you don't bring that same intensity it doesn't happen for you ... it just doesn't happen," Watts told AFL.com.au in December last year.