Not many people could run a 6:05 minute two-kilometre time trial after all the training in the world, but even less could do so having gone for a solitary run over a two-month period.

But for Steele Sidebottom, the dreaded ‘two-ker’ was bread and butter.

The Pies had bowed out in the 2009 Preliminary Final at the hands of eventual premier Geelong, bringing the boy from Tallygaroopna’s debut season to a close.

For the teenager, it was a chance to put his feet up and reflect on a maiden campaign that would show glimpses of the now glittering career football fans are still witnessing to this day. But as housemate and fellow first-year player Jarryd Blair recalled, that off-season didn’t include much training.

“He was just a natural sportsman, good at everything and naturally fit,” Blair said.

“He rocked up at our first pre-season and if he didn’t win the ‘two-ker’ he was top two or three and then after our first off-season he came back and he ran a 6.05 and won the ‘two-ker’ by an absolute mile.

“I remember chatting to him about what he’d done over the off-season, and he’d said he had been for one run, so he was just a naturally gifted athlete and sportsman.”

While he’s more-than upped his professionalism since those early days, it offers a glimpse into just how gifted this week’s 350-game milestone star is.

Blair and Sidebottom first met as Victoria Country teammates in 2008 – the former from the state’s east in Gippsland and the latter its north in the Murray region – and Blair quickly saw just how skilful and competitive he was.

“I actually played Vic Country with Steelo and I have vivid memories of because I was pretty much a fringe player and Steelo was a pretty established gun at that point and he was just a larrikan and life of the party,” he said.

“We were staying at Ormond College in Melbourne Uni and I just remember he spent pretty much the whole time that we weren’t at footy training just on the table tennis table there just flogging blokes playing table tennis.

“I’m pretty sure in the end he got a bit of a talking to actually to just tone it down a little bit.

“We didn’t go that well that week and the coach had a little dig at Sidey but that was just his competitive nature and that’s one thing I remember about him early days.”

The pair would become housemates having been drafted together by the Pies in 2008 and quickly strengthened their bond, with Blair getting to see Sidebottom’s growth first-hand.

While that competitive edge would only strengthen together, as they played endless hours of backyard cricket and household games, Sidebottom’s career would burgeon quickly, highlighted by his role in their 2010 premiership in just their second year.

“It was cool to see over time how he went from performing on natural ability to really clicking into gear and getting the work done as well,” Blair said.

“He has always wanted to be the best and get the best out of himself and that’s why he is where he is.

“There’s that natural evolution of learning about yourself and then there’s the guys who can evolve and change and get better and Steelo’s one of the guys who could. He wasn’t happy just getting to a point, he wanted to keep exploring about himself and getting better.

“It was pretty cool to be a part of that flag and for Steelo, youngest man on the ground two weeks in a row and top handful of players on the ground two weeks in a row, what he was able to do had massive impact on us winning a premiership.”

Someone who joined Sidebottom and Blair at the Pies a few years later was Jeremy Howe, then known for his high-flying in a struggling Melbourne side.

The now premiership Magpie remembers playing against the Pies in the early days of his career, with Sidebottom always an opponent he revered.

“Being an opponent for him, that’s one you’ve got magnets up pre-game, of who to be aware of, and he was certainly one of those,” Howe said.

“There was his work rate and his capacity to grind people into the ground and any time he used the ball both left and right was a nightmare, so no kick was out of question for him.

“Therefore, trying to defend what he was producing going the other way was almost impossible.

“I’m glad he’s a teammate now.”

Howe and Sidebottom’s time as teammates began in 2016 – an era when an already established Sidebottom’s career was taking off to even greater heights.

He would win his first Anzac Day Medal in ’16, go back-to-back in Copeland Trophies in 2017 & ’18 – as well as winning the Gary Ayres Medal and finishing on the podium of the Brownlow Medal in that runners-up season of 2018.

Both Howe and Blair – who of course had been there from the start – reflect on just how dialled in they saw Sidebottom’s preparation go during this period where he was at the peak of his powers.

“Watching him from Monday to Friday, his work ethic at training - he was and is our best trainer and he prepares unbelievably well, so there was no surprise to why he was so good on game day,” Howe said.

“How hard he attacked training - I know (High Performance Manager Jarrod Wade) Wadey sticks to a quote that you “don’t have to feel good to train good, nor do you have to feel good to play good” - Sidey probably epitomises that.

“Every single session he turned himself inside out, where I was like ‘Monday, Wednesdays is me, Friday I might taper off a bit because I’m feeling not feeling great’, but there was no lapse for him."

And for Blair, whose career was drawing to a close in the same year Sidebottom very nearly took out the league’s highest honour:

“I can picture my last two or three years there where he was just ticking every box and starting to piece the diet thing together and lifting bigger weights in the gym and ticking all the boxes in the gym and it just started to translate even more into his footy,” he said.

“He reads the game and he can run all day, but he runs to the right spots all day – I can just picture him working back to the defensive goal line covering and then next thing he’s in the forward pocket having a shot from the boundary.

“His uncanny ability to be there and be used in big moments it’s pretty special and it’s very rare.

“I’ve seen him be one of the most durable players in the game too – he’s hardly missed a decent block of footy over 15-16 years now so it’s pretty impressive.”

Over the last few seasons, as a second premiership, second Anzac Day Medal, and what some would call a second wave of career-best form has been produced by Sidebottom.

But it is his growth off field – as a father, husband, and elder statesmen of the locker room that has impressed Howe the most as his mate prepares to run out for a whopping 350th time.

“I’ve been grateful to be here for ten years now and our connection has only grown,” he said.

“I think watching him become a Dad to Matilda, I was like ‘wow, he is the kind of guy that you really want to be’.

“Watching him be a father and a husband that was like ‘if I could just be half as good as that then I feel like I’d be doing good things’ and it’s only continually grown, he’s obviously got Ned now.

“The way he treats other guys is probably a real highlight for me and he was the first one to really welcome me and you can’t help but be around him – a pretty infectious personality so I’m very lucky to have a friendship with him.”