Football can be a cruel master, but it can also provide the sweetest taste of redemption there is.
In big games or moments players are human and falter, sometimes costing their side a premiership. But the players that respond the best are the ones whose stories shine the brightest.
Some players' mistakes happen off the field, besmirching their name. But again, football gives them light at the end of the tunnel and a path back for them to show their true character.
So which stories in recent memory have the best redemption arc?
6Jack Watts
The only story in this list that didn't result in a premiership, but his moment of redemption was still on the big stage.
Watts was put up as the poster boy of the next great generation of the Melbourne Football Club after he was taken with pick one in the 2008 AFL Draft.
However, as the Demons' poor run continued into 2009, the club decided to blood their young tall before he was ready. And to make matters worse, Melbourne debuted him at the MCG against Collingwood in the (then) Queen's Birthday match.
The Pies went after Watts and bullied him physically from start to finish, creating scars that appeared to hang around Watts and the Demons for a long time to come.
Watts was unfairly maligned for much of his career at Melbourne as the club struggled to compete for a decade straight.
But in 2017, on the same Queen's Birthday fixture, Watts found his redemption as his beautiful running goal sunk the Pies to the raptures of the Demons faithful. It was the moment that declared the Dees' long suffering to be over, and it was a moment of redemption and revenge for Watts.
