Clearly the best player in a struggling team, Pring had tired of playing in a losing side at Carngham-Linton and felt his football was going down the wrong path.

Since returning to his home at Lake Wendouree this year however, his passion has returned as he dreams of a second Ballarat Football League premiership.

Pring, 26, never intended to spend three years in the Central Highlands Football League.

He moved “out bush” originally to play with his brother Jake at Carngham-Linton, who had also made the move for the 2012 season.

However, a quadricep injury in his first season limited his impact.

“I still felt I owed the club a bit because I didn’t play as well as I would’ve liked with the injury,” he said.

“I was always going to come back to Lake Wendouree but I was enjoying playing out there.”

He spent three years playing with the Saints before the urge to return to the newly resurfaced Wendouree Reserve became too much.

The constant pestering from Lake Wendouree teammates to return was also hard to resist.

“I was always saying ‘yeah, next year I’ll come back’, then another year would go by,” Pring said.

“When I saw the oval was going to be done up and blokes like Cliffo (captain Steve Clifton) was coming back, I knew it was the right time.

“If I stayed out there I think it would have been a waste of a year at my age.

“Towards the end I wasn’t enjoying it as much, I was busting my gut and we were losing by 10-15 goals every week.”

Pring won the Saints’ best and fairest in 2014 and polled a solid 18 votes in the league vote count – an indication he was still at the top of his game.

And in his first year back in the blue, green and gold, he has showed no signs of slowing down.

Used mainly as a small forward now, he has booted 37 goals for the season and was influential in the Lakers’ comeback victory against East Point last week.

However, he knows his side still has a mountain of work ahead if it is to taste the ultimate success this year.

“I knew if everything fell our way this year then we could go all the way,” he said.

“It would be the best thing, footy-wise, but that’s still too far off to even think about really.”

And what’s in store for the future?

Pring sees himself at Lake Wendouree for some time to come now.

“Maybe when I’m getting towards the end of my career I might go out to the bush.”