We all have our favourites. For the best part of a decade, mine has been Nathan Burns. The back story – the country kid who left home at 14 to pursue the dream – was part of it. But it was more about his talent. His rich, unblemished, rare, talent. The rugby league town of Blayney – a nuggety community set in the folds of the Great Dividing Range between Bathurst and Cowra – had somehow produced a world-class player for the world game. Serendipity.

Burns was destined to be a superstar. Nothing surer. But it's not going to happen. I can see that now. The hope has ebbed away. A waste – a terrible waste. That's the unpalatable truth of a career which offered so much but now enters the twilight zone. At the age of 29, Burns should be in his prime. Playing for a big club in a big league. Instead he's heading towards the finish line almost in slow motion. You can't see him saving himself from here.

Burns' name was missing from the latest Socceroos squad, but it says a lot that nobody noticed. Ange Postecoglou has given him plenty of chances – he'd been selected for five of the seven previous World Cup qualifiers. But it was always as a bench player, and often he didn't get on the pitch. As James Troisi, Robbie Kruse, Tim Cahill and Mustafa Amini jumped off the bench ahead of him, you wonder if it hurt that he'd slipped so far down the pecking order. It should have.

With the exception of Cahill, Burns is a better player than all of them. In fact he's a better player than most of the players in this squad, and many squads before it. But has he cared enough? Has he ever wanted it bad enough? 'It' being to play, to contribute, to win. Does Burns love football, and what he brings to it, or does he love what football brings to him?