A lot has changed since Sam Docherty played an AFL match for four points; Carlton was wearing Nike guernseys, Bryce Gibbs was at the Blues and Eddie Betts at Adelaide, six-six-six was deep in an AFL administrator's subconscious, and the Tigers' premiership drought was at 36-and-a-half years.
According to the Blues' co-captain, 2015 No. 1 draft pick Jacob Weitering was still "just a kid" in 2017. Now, Docherty says Weitering has grown -- in the nicest possible way -- to become "manchild", ready to take on the gorilla forwards of the AFL.
Speaking to ESPN ahead of Thursday's Round 1 clash with reigning premiers Richmond, Docherty said the 22-year-old was ready to take the competition by storm.
"I've watched Jacob Weitering grow up from being basically an 18, 19-year-old kid to a bit of a manchild now, and he's competing against the best forwards in the competition," Docherty said.
"Probably the biggest thing that's changed after two years out of the game has been watching [the defence] grow up, and I've been able to come back and see the leadership and growth in the game of someone like Jacob - in his strength and ability to impact on games of footy. I'm bloody excited."
Docherty said Weitering would be the first to admit he suffered from second year blues, and a down third year in the competition, before he quietly built up strong form in the back half of 2019. He said it was no surprise given it takes key position players time to develop, build mass and game sense, and that the club expected big things from Weitering in 2020.
"It's a really exciting year for him. I think his first year was really good and then he had a bit of a down couple of years, which I think he'd say was a great couple of years in terms of his development. He's been able to grow his game a lot," Docherty said.
"He's put a great deal of size on with his body, and the thing with him at the moment is that he's confident. He's very confident in what he's been able to do and what his job is and what he can produce.
"That's exciting for me as one of the leaders of the club, knowing I've got a guy that wants to master his craft and his game, and he's confident against the biggest players in the league."
Docherty was also full of praise for Carlton's high performance fitness guru Andrew Russell -- who crossed over from Hawthorn at the end of 2018 -- for the role he'd played in Weitering's development over the past two seasons. The skipper said the tailored conditioning programs introduced by Russell had played a big role in building not only Weitering's strength and confidence, but that of the entire defence.
"Andrew Russell has been great for [Weitering] in preseason - he's tailored the big guys' workloads so they're not running around as much as the smaller, younger guys. It's a very tailored program and we'll see the fruits of that labour throughout the season," Docherty told ESPN.
"I'm pretty lucky down [in defence], I've got Liam Jones and Weitering to run around with who are two of the bigger aerial threats in defence, in the league."
But it's not just on field growth Docherty has seen in Weitering while the skipper has been on the sidelines - off the field, "what you see is what you get" with the 22-year-old key defender.
"He's a very serious character, he's very professional and very switched on off the field. He's looked after himself really well and he's done a mountain of work throughout the preseason," Docherty said.
As for Docherty himself -- who underwent an extra cautious rehabilitation from the second ACL injury sustained in December 2018 -- he feels he's ticked all the right boxes leading up to his comeback, and that the biggest adjustment won't actually be to the game itself.
"To be honest, I'm most trying to get my head around the warm-ups. When I last played two years ago, we had on-ground warm-ups before the bounce, but all of that's changed. They're trying to get the pregame entertainment in, so they've moved all that around and it's stuffed up my routine," Docherty told ESPN with a laugh.
"But the game itself, having played the two Marsh series games, it still feels very similar, familiar to two years ago, and I feel really confident which is great."