Williams’ father, Steven, passed away when he was five years old, leaving Joy O’Hara to raise him and his older sister alone. Putting food on the table was hard enough. But growing up in Narrandera, in the heart of Wiradjuri country, Williams was one of those kids who was good at any sport he tried his hand at. O’Hara didn’t want to put a ceiling on what her son could achieve, which until then meant taking him across the length and breadth of NSW for training, representative games and state basketball carnivals. "That’s the thing out in the country – AFL was Saturday, rugby league was Sunday, so you could play both. And basketball was mid-week, carnivals every couple of months," she said. "Rugby league – he went hard for a tackle. If he got the ball and made a break up the wing, there was no stopping him. And he’d tell you today, ‘Mum, if I’d have chosen basketball I’d be in the NBA.’

"But financially, for a one-wage family – and the wage wasn’t exactly the best wage in the world ... it wasn’t just registration fees, levies, but uniforms, travel as well – by plane, train or by car, petrol. I’d have to take time off work for him to go to these places as well." Williams remembers "the talk" from his mum well. He reckons basketball was his favourite sport at the time, but felt like he was just a touch too short to make it big. Most of his mates played footy. His sporting idols were Adam Goodes and Michael O’Loughlin and he always wanted to play in an AFL grand final like them, so that was the way he went. "I’m glad I did," he said. "It doesn’t get much better than leading into a grand final." Williams’ dad played both Aussie rules and rugby league until he was 16, and it was he who made the fateful decision to take his young son to an Auskick clinic one day. From then on, he was rarely seen without a Sherrin.

"Anywhere he went, the whole town can remember seeing this child trying to kick it over power lines or between trees, trying to hit a target," said O’Hara, now 51 and an Aboriginal education officer at the school her son once went to. "I spoke to his PE teacher the other day and he said 'Joy, I can remember when I had him in

Year 9. He’s got the football in his hand, he kicks it to himself and goes Yes! Williams takes it from Betts and kicks the goal to win the grand final for Carlton!'" Zac Williams as a young basketball player. Kevin Sheedy reckons Williams will be remembered as one of the most significant figures in the history of the Giants. The club’s inaugural coach took the 2013 rookie draft selection under his wing, making him his pet project player – to the point where his teammates started to refer to him as "Zac Sheedy".

His status as a Giants academy graduate from remote NSW as a zone selection and his polite, respectful demeanour makes him the perfect poster-boy for the sport’s aggressive northern push. But Williams also has the potential to be one of the code’s next great Indigenous superstars, with last weekend’s performance the finest of his career to date. "I’m mum, and I’m biased, but I thought he should have been All-Australian this year. But I said to him,'Zac, the real prize is the finals'," O’Hara said. Now 25, the last premiership Williams played in was the 2012 Riverina Football League grand final. He was best on ground for the Narrandera Eagles in their win over Collingullie-Ashmont-Kapooka, the club that produced Harry Perryman, who happened to be in the crowd that day, sledging his future Giants teammate. On Saturday, they could both have AFL medallions around their necks.