There’s something special about transiting Ipswich Road and seeing the city’s name adorning an overpass to let you know that you’ve made it home.
Ipswich Brothers’ junior Marion Seve is coming home to finish where it started.
For Seve, the journey back to the Ipswich Jets in 2027 will bring his rugby league career full circle, 11 years after first pulling on the jersey of his hometown club.
“I can’t wait, we are moving in December, we might even be back at mum’s house for a bit.” Seve laughed.
“I made my Hostplus Cup debut for the Jets, they’re my local team and the team I love.
“It’s exciting to be coming back.
“I want to give back; I am going to be working at Bundamba High with their Rugby League program and as a Teacher Aid.
“I am going to miss Melbourne; it’s been my home for eight years. I met my wife here and we have had three boys here, but home is home.”
Seve came off the bench and scored two tries in his Jets’ debut in a 38-24 win against the Norths Devils in 2016.
He played 18 Hostplus Cup games for the Jets before embarking on a career that would take him to the NRL and the Melbourne Storm.
Since then, he has accumulated 52 NRL appearances for the Storm and 104 games in the Hostplus Cup, establishing himself as a powerful and physical presence across the competition.
But the numbers only tell part of Seve's story.
Behind the games and the achievements has been a career punctuated by setbacks that would have tested anyone.
As a teenager, Seve battled stage three testicular cancer, overcoming the disease before returning to pursue his rugby league ambitions.
Just as he was establishing himself at the highest level, another major hurdle arrived, with an ACL rupture in 2020 threatening to derail his progress.
Then came perhaps his most frightening setback.
While playing in the NSW Cup for the North Sydney Bears, an opposition player's boot made direct contact with Seve's right eyeball in a freak accident.
The injury required surgery to save his sight, leaving him with blurred vision and the prospect of wearing protective goggles for the remainder of his playing career.
It was an extraordinary sequence of events for a player who had already overcome so much.
Rather than dwelling on his misfortune, Seve considered himself lucky to still be playing.
That gratitude was evident in his return to the field.
After scoring a hattrick for North Sydney in his first game back wearing the protective goggles, he earned an NRL recall against Penrith, scoring a try in Melbourne's memorable golden-point victory.
“I want to bring all that experience of the Storm and the NRL and bring it home.” Seve said.
“I just want to help.”
And now, in 2027, another opportunity awaits.
A decade after making those first 18 appearances for Ipswich, Seve will return to the Jets.
He will bring back the lessons of a career that has taken him from his hometown to the biggest stage in rugby league, through injury, adversity and some remarkable comebacks.
Because while football has taken him a long way from Ipswich, it has never changed where his story began.
Ten years on, the hometown boy is coming back.
And after everything he has been through to keep playing, there is something particularly fitting about finding his way home and the smile as he passes under that sign.
