For such a young man, Phillip Hughes saw clearly the road he wanted to travel. In cricket terms, it began with the Pacific Highway that runs right through his home town of Macksville and crosses the adjacent Nambucca River marking the mid-point of the journey between Sydney and Brisbane. As a hugely talented and even more highly driven 17-year-old, Hughes saw that road stretching from his family's banana property to the opportunities afforded by the city.


Golden MemOries: Test debutant Phil Hughes celebrates Australia's victory over South Africa with his father Greg at the Wanderers in Johannesburg on March 2, 2009. Pic/Getty Images 

And despite his innate shyness and a country boy's love of the bucolic life he gave up his other boyhood love – rugby league – and took his cricket kit to Sydney.
He was chasing a dream born around the time he first turned out for the Macksville RSL Cricket Club's A-grade team against some combative and vastly more seasoned country cricketers – at the impressionable age of 12.