Years ago, a young Lachie Sullivan began his journey towards earning a sparky apprenticeship.

He’d always loved footy – and always been good at it – playing school football for St. Kevin’s and TAC Cup for the Oakleigh Chargers alongside the likes of Darcy Moore and Ben Crocker.

But unfortunately for the 180cm midfielder, he was overlooked at the national draft. He’d ply his trade for Port Melbourne in the VFL in the years following his initial draft year and for his old school’s side in the VAFA, but he was forced to enter the workforce.

Bradley Smith – owner of Bradlec Electrical – remembers Sullivan embarking on his apprenticeship as a quiet kid, who always got his jobs done.

“Probably six odd years ago he started his apprenticeship with us and he was just a footy kid and kept his head down,” Smith, Sullivan’s former boss said.

“He’s that humble, he didn’t even know he was any good at footy until a few years ago, but he’s one of the best workers we’ve had and there’s no one more deserving.

“He was always running jobs and everyone just loved him.”

By 2018, when he started playing for Footscray in the VFL, work and football consumed Sullivan’s life.

He’d wake up at 6am or earlier each morning, work all day, before heading out to the Western suburbs twice a week for training until 10pm. And then he’d do it all over again.

“Even through COVID lockdown, he was there at 5am training in the gym before going to work and driving down to Sorrento and then way back up to Footscray to train until 10pm,” Smith remembers.

“When you’re a tradie you do what you can at the club, but there’s only so much time you’ve got at night two times a week,” Sullivan said.

“It’s sort of a blur with how much better you can get but I still felt like I was getting better every year at the Dogs and my mentality is always to keep getting better.”

He did get better, playing well through the 2018 and 2019 seasons, before that COVID break forced the league to have a year off.

He resumed with the Dogs in ’21, but by then his electrician work had taken precedence – something that had ramifications for 2022 without him knowing it at the time.

“I didn’t nominate for the 2021 draft because I didn’t think I was going to get drafted,” Sullivan said.

“I started the year pretty well at the Dogs in 2022 and found out that I couldn’t nominate for the mid-season draft because of that.

“I remember my whole focus was my electrician exams so I was studying for that doing night school and I didn’t really look into it because I didn’t really think I was a chance.

“I didn’t really know what it meant for next year as well, because no one really tells you have to do that to nominate for the mid-season.

“I didn’t have a manager at the time but I found out through speaking to people that I would’ve needed to nominate the year before.”

But at least by 2022, Sullivan’s name was back on the radar for clubs.

By the end of last year, he’d racked up multiple Footscray Best & Fairest Awards and had people around him telling him his time was now.

But when it didn’t happen, Sullivan couldn’t help but feel flat – something his former boss remembers.

“To see him go through the highs and lows, going back two years ago when he finally got an agent and was thinking he might get something and nothing happened it was pretty rough,” Smith said.

“I’ve seen him at the lows … the responsibility of running big jobs and being captain of his team and all that sort of stuff it’s just amazing, it’s not like some little whipper snapper with some talent and an ego, he just works so hard.

“I told him ‘don’t ever quit man’, one thing I’ve learnt in business is you just get up and you get knocked down and someone will eventually pick you up.”

But despite his boss’ words of encouragement, it was a tough time for Sullivan, who by that point had been through numerous national, rookie, and mid-season drafts.

“I was pretty flat. When I reflect on it now, I try to be upbeat about it but it was pretty shattering,” he said.

“When the rookie draft was happening I was just sitting in my car thinking ‘what do I do now?’.

“I just went home and tried not to think about it too much and people were saying there’s not much else you can do – if they’re not going to take you now they’re never going to take you.

“I thought I guess I might be done then.”

But a week later, his fortunes changed.

An ad hoc meeting set up by his manager with the Club led to a late arrival as an SSP-trialist, with Smith giving Sullivan his full blessing to chase his dreams.

“When he got the call from Collingwood I was like ‘go train, don’t worry about sparky work, this will always be here’,” Smith said.

“I said ‘this is your dream, once in a lifetime and I’ll always support that’.

“I was like mate if you can do all this while working a full time job, you can do anything.”

And the rest is history for Sullivan.

The midfielder remembers cramping in both his quads during one of his first trainings at the Club, going to bed every night thinking about how he’d performed, and taking a “do or die” attitude into each session.

A pre-season and four VFL games later, the 26-year-old has been handed his maiden appearance at the top level – in front of 90,000 plus people no less - something he never thought he’d achieve.

“You can never relax especially if you want to try and get a game at such a good club,” Sullivan said.

“Just thinking about the whole journey, I would’ve never thought I’d be here.

“I just smile thinking about it. It’s so exciting and it’ll just be crazy.

“The biggest crowd I’d ever have played in would be like a VAFA Grand Final which is like a couple of thousand which seems like a lot in those games, so it’ll be pretty cool.”

And for Smith and Sullivan’s old colleagues, they now get to revel in their mate’s success.

“We’d always talk on the site like ‘imagine if Lach gets picked up and he’s playing’ and then next minute he’s playing against the Blues at the ‘G on a Friday night,” Smith said.

“He’s got so many people behind him that he wouldn’t even realise and everyone is going to be cheering him on this weekend.

“Even on Friday I caught up with him and he was saying work was a good outlet for his footy and footy was a good outlet from work so anything he does he’s 110% into it which I admire from him.

“He never gave up and it’s such a good story.”