There was one thing people were right about, though. The most difficult thing Stringer has been through was the day Milla was born. He felt emotional and overwhelmed, sneaking off into the bathroom a few times so that Abby didn't see him cry. And that was before the baby was born. "I did nothing that day but the mental side of it was unbelievable because there's nothing you can do. A game of footy isn't as hard as that was. A whole year of games wouldn't be that hard." Pumped: Jake Stringer of the Bulldogs. Credit:Getty Images He does understand pain, though. It is four years since Stringer broke the tibia and fibula in his left leg, the shin bone breaking through the skin when his right foot kicked it. Starting over meant getting lapped by elderly neighbours while walking laps of the reservoir near his family's home in Bendigo, and he went from being a big chance to be picked up in the first 17-year-old mini-draft to "someone that no one even wanted to talk to". When they did, it was to tell him how much he was struggling: that he had a limp, that his running gait had changed, that he had lost all of his power, that he might not ever be the same. "You're not there yet," his father used to tell him, in his first year with the Western Bulldogs. "Yeah, yeah," Stringer can remember thinking. He knew they were most likely right, because Michael Barlow had told him it would take at least two years to get back to where he was – let alone where he wanted to go – when he called from Fremantle to fill Stringer in on his own badly broken leg. But he was out for so long he almost forgot what feeling like himself was like, and it was not until the middle of last season that he worked out exactly how right everybody had been been.

Stringer was strong when he got to the Bulldogs, but found himself almost suddenly able to squat heavier weights, with a whole lot more power. A few games playing onball in the VFL team made him believe he could do it at senior level when the team needed him to, and understand exactly what it would take. A few games in the back line helped him work out the things defenders hate having done to them, and he took that information back to the other end. "I always told people I never felt my leg, but now that I think about it I never even jumped in my first two years here. I was just trying to break tackles and kick goals and my game wasn't very dynamic, but it all just started to come back all of sudden, my strength, power and speed," he said. "My confidence went up and I started to think, 'I might actually be almost back to fully right.' Everything they measured said I had more power, but it was the way I felt more than anything. I felt good again. The only reminder I have about it now is the scars on my leg." He hopes there is further to go. Stringer started pre-season a few kilograms lighter than he ended last season, so that he could spend a bit more time in the middle. He ran better, his strength improved again and he trained for the first few months with something on his mind: the mark he dropped in the Bulldogs' final-round game against Greater Western Sydney, losing the ball in the lights then watching the Giants rush it to the other end, kick a goal and somehow win the match. It was Daniel Giansiracusa's last game, the rooms were miserable, there was no chance to make up for it the next weekend and it was all very hard to forget. "That was horrible. It took me a long time to get over that, only because it was Gia's last game. I lost it in the lights and I was all over the joint but it was probably a blessing in disguise, because it made me want to come back and do better," Stringer said. "It's not nice to finish the season like that and I was worried he'd hold it against me, but there's a lot of love at the moment at the club, so I think we're good. It's just a really tight-knit group at the moment, everything we do is for each other."

It feels the same way at home. Abby and Jake had two miscarriages before Milla came along, helping each other through and relying on the club and the friends they had made there. It means even their baby's grumpy days are good days. "Both our families are in Bendigo but we've got our own little family in Melbourne and it gives you something to look forward to and something to work hard for," said Stringer. "It adds a different dimension to life. We went through some hard times to get Milla, but it makes it all worth it now that she's here and now that we have her."