Weitering was on the Gold Coast at the time, as part of the AFL Academy. It was the end of November, almost two years ago. He was two years too young to be drafted, but one of 30 boys learning about what it would take and what they needed to do if they were going to make sure they got there.

At the first camp, Weitering had looked around and realised that every kid there was probably the best player on his team. None of them were used to not being the best. All of them looked a lot bigger than him. He had to work out how to fit in, who his friends would be. It all felt very new.

The Gold Coast camp was the second one. It was hot - 30 degrees every day - and the training was hard, session after session, day after day. In some sessions the boys were pitted against the older group - heading into their draft year - and they were bigger, stronger and better than the younger kids. Weitering knew what was coming next: a tour of New Zealand the next April. He wasn't sure he was good enough, to keep keeping up. And he wasn't really sure he wanted to.

To watch Weitering play now, you would not imagine any of those thoughts even starting to run through his head. He is a thoughtful and perceptive person but he's also calm, composed and sensible. He doesn't like being beaten and he hasn't been beaten often this year. He manages his opponents, and he helps control games. He's organised, meticulous and he can't wait until he has the chance to be even more so. He wants to get into a club so that he can "eat 100 per cent right, learn how to train like an AFL player, get fitter and stronger than I am. Get up at 6.30, get to the club by seven and leave in the afternoon knowing you've worked hard and made progress. I love routine. My mum's always said I fall in a heap on holidays, because I wake up in the morning and don't know what to do for the day."

To reach that point, though, Weitering had to ask himself some questions. And then come up with the answers. "I had a strange time on the Gold Coast. I'm not exactly sure why, but it stirred up some of my feelings about footy. I wasn't sure whether I wanted to keep going with it," he said.

"It was just different to anything I'd been part of before. I never get homesick, but I did miss my family a little bit. It was really, really hot. We had meetings and we had to be there on time. We had to number off correctly and if we didn't then we were up at six o'clock in the morning doing knuckle push-ups. It was extremely challenging physically, but for me it was more to do with self belief.

"I was thinking, do I want to do this? Am I even good enough? The boys were all bigger than me and I was competing, but I wasn't coming first any more. To be honest, I didn't want to go to New Zealand. I was always going to, because I didn't want to let the team down. But I'm really glad I did."

On that trip, Weitering was voted joint best on ground in the game against the Kiwi kids. He loved the atmosphere of the camp, working out that you don't necessarily need to fit in, you just have to find a way to be yourself. He made some good friends, and didn't want to lose contact with them. Individual awards have never meant all that much to him, but being recognised for playing well in the game made him feel as though he was doing more than just keeping up, that he might be good enough after all. "I think my competitiveness came out," he said. "I found some confidence. It was good reassurance."

A lot has happened since then. After New Zealand, Weitering got stuck into his bottom-age year, his season interrupted in the end by injury and illness. At the start of this year he travelled to Florida with the top-age academy team for a training camp, and until his ankle was trod on by a teammate, he trained harder than ever before, loving it. Just before hurting his ankle he was told he'd be manning Tom Hawkins, who was in Sarasota to do some hydration testing and spending a day with the boys, in their session that day. "I missed out," he said, "and it was disappointing. It would have been such a good test. I have no idea how I would have gone, but I would have been trying."

He just had to wait a bit longer. When the team got back together at Easter, to play against two VFL sides, Weitering played well on Majak Daw against Werribee and even better against Matthew Watson and the Northern Blues. So many people watching made the same observation: that he already looked ready to slot into a few AFL teams. Weitering didn't start the year hoping or expecting to have the words "potential No.1 pick" attached to his name. And the season had just started when that talk began. But it felt like one more small vote of confidence. "It was one more thing that made me think, well maybe I am one of the best few players in my age group, so take that as a positive but don't assume anything or let yourself think you're better than anyone else," he said. "You've got to always come back to the reason you play, and the reason that you're there. I couldn't let it affect me, and I don't feel like it has."

There was still lots left to learn, anyway. Weitering is a natural defender, but it is only in the past few years that he has played in the back line. First, he had to grow: three years ago he stood about 185 centimetres; now he's key position size at 195cm. He had played in the forward line while a junior at Mount Martha, but was sent to a half-back flank at the start of the state under-16 carnival and liked it there, working as part of a team within a team. He was probably destined to end up there: his father Darren played at fullback for the St Kilda under-19 team, playing alongside Robert Harvey and Justin Peckett before going back to local footy, winning a premiership and retiring at 24 to focus on his father-in-law's wrecking business, which his parents still run together.

Jacob was born the next year. "Dad probably had the potential to make AFL, but back in those days football was kind of your second job. You'd have to work five full days a week and fit training in around that. Dad didn't really have the drive to do that I guess. He had my mum and work was important to him and 23 years later it still is. I think it was just different times, but both my parents have always encouraged me to do what I love to do. I still remember Dad helping me pick out my team when I was five. He read out the names of all the AFL teams one day and got down to Melbourne Demons and I said 'I like the sound of that, that's my favourite team now'."

They still are, though Weitering looks a lot further these days. He likes to lead, to think about what good leaders do and the different ways they do it. Watching behind-the-goals vision he has noticed Luke Hodge taking care of his opponent while pointing, shouting and getting his back line organised. He likes the way Nick Riewoldt and Matthew Pavlich do things, and to listen to Trent Cotchin talk about how he has learnt to be true to his low-key nature while captaining the many personalities in his AFL team.

To Weitering, being a good leader means being selfless, and aware. It means believing in the things you are good at but seeking out mentors and identifying the talent of others. At times this year he used his pre-game addresses to the Vic Country team to calm the players and to remind them why they were there and what they had to do. Other times, he called in the reinforcements. "I'm not the most vocal guy," he said. "Sometimes, we needed a rev up, and we had guys who were good at that. I don't think having one leader works, and good leaders put others before themselves and lead by example. You can't ask someone to do something you're not willing to do yourself."

Weitering will have other things to focus on when he gets started in two weeks. New coaches, teammates, new things to learn and lots of hard training to do. He 's ready for it. "In one way it feels like I've been waiting forever, but in another way it's almost come too quickly," he said. "For the last few years I've been looking at all the guys getting drafted and thinking, is it ever going to be my turn? To get there you've got to lose what you've had for 18 years, and that's your childhood. A lot of things will change, but that's inevitable at this age when you're deciding what you want to do and who you want to be. To be in that environment is something I'm really looking forward to."