FROM country boy to ultimate professional.

The journey of Jordan Lewis has revolved around being a real competitor – driven to win, driven to get better – and culminated in success at almost every turn.

As an 18-year-old, the Warrnambool product was drafted to a club not at its highest point. In the dozen years since, Lewis has helped drive the club to the top of the tree – to four premierships in the past eight years.

“He’s been a big part of that emergence of our club,” Hawthorn coach Alastair Clarkson said this week.

“That’s obviously culminated in some significant success over the last three or four years in particular, where we’ve won a lot of games of football. He’s become a very, very important player.

“He won a best and fairest in 2014 in a premiership year for our football club, and he was also All Australian in that year. When guys are making contributions to that level in periods of success for your club, you know that those contributions have been profound."

It took Lewis little time to make his initial impression at Hawthorn. In Round 3 of his debut year, the number seven draft pick played his first AFL game, and finished the year as the club’s best first year player.

Hawks captain Luke Hodge, then just a couple of years into his own career, has seen Lewis transform from a rookie to one the competition’s best players.

“He was an hour further (from Melbourne), I was Colac and he was Warrnambool (but) we never sort of crossed paths until we got to Hawthorn,” Hodge said.

“I guess it was probably similar to what a lot of people thought of me – a pudgy, fat country boy. He was a solid fella when he got here, but you can see how he’s changed and how his professionalism has changed since he got to the footy club.

“You look at him now, how he can cover the ground… he’s been so durable because of his professionalism, the recovery he does and what he puts in his body.”

The early years were challenging, as the Hawks blooded a lot of young players, getting games into the likes of Lewis and fellow 2004 draftees Jarryd Roughead and Lance Franklin.

“We’d had a few down years, and I guess the mindset was to get these guys - fantastic junior footballers – as much experience as we can,” Hodge said.

“You saw what happened in 2007-08, a lot of our success in those years came because of those guys - getting games into them early helped them develop and helped them mature and had a huge impact in all our grand final years.”

Lewis hasn’t missed more than a handful of matches in any season.

It’s his never-say-die attitude that stands out to both Hodge and Clarkson, a desire to impact the contest and the big moments.

“He was tough and hard (from the outset), and the way that he’s played his footy career is a reflection of that,” Clarkson said.

“He was like that through his junior days. We loved the real blue-collar nature of the way that he played.

"He’s been able to maintain the consistency in his approach to the game because from an early age he had the body shape that could withstand the rigours of the game, but his longevity and durability have been because he’s looked after his body so well. He’s become the ultimate professional."

The 2014 season was a big one for Lewis – with a premiership medal, All Australian guernsey and club best and fairest to his name.

In Hodge’s eyes, it was the culmination of years of hard work – and a big builder of belief.

“The hardest thing with Lewy is because he was so versatile, he had games where he was playing a defensive forward role on Heath Shaw and kicked five, he would go and play on the wing and then on-ball, and then deep forward,” Hodge said.

“He can play so many different roles... (and) the club chucked him around here and there because of what suited the club.

“2014 was obviously a fantastic year for him… So many times that year he willed us over the line and won games off his own bat, just by taking control in certain parts of the game. I think he did get a lot of confidence from that year.”

Lewis plays his 250^th game on Saturday, and Clarkson says it’s a fitting recognition for everything the star Hawk has achieved.

“It’s a special effort. When you add four premierships to that too, a best and fairest and an All Australian, he’s been a pretty decorated player for our football club,” Clarkson said.

“Our club’s been going for a long, long period of time, and for only 13 guys to have achieved that milestone tells you he’s in pretty special company.

“We’ve really enjoyed watching him play his footy over the last 12 years or so, and we can’t wait for him to run out there on Saturday and contribute again to hopefully another victory against Brisbane.”

But it’s far from the end of the story - and Clarkson is certain of that.

“He’s reached 250 games and he’s still 30 years of age, so hopefully he’s still got some strong footy ahead of him. He’s contribution has been consistent for a long period of time, and we’re hoping it can remain that way for a few years yet,” he said.