Of the 1136 young men to have completed their senior debut for the Carlton Football Club, how many have done so in front of 90,000 people against Collingwood at the MCG?

It’s the extraordinary scenario now confronting the Sunshine-born Swan Districts recruit Wayde Twomey, who will take to the hallowed turf wearing the No.39 guernsey made famous by the rebounding Premiership half-back flanker of 1995, Ang Christou.

“What a beauty to start off with,” said Twomey, just hours after he got wind of his selection at a café near Bay Street, Port Melbourne.

“I was actually having lunch with my Dad when ‘Ratts’ [Senior Coach Brett Ratten] gave me a call. He obviously knew I was pretty excited about it at the time, because I don’t think I could speak properly after he told me,” Twomey said.

“I didn’t have any forewarning at all. I obviously knew I’d be playing reasonably good footy and that if I kept doing what I’d been doing then I might pop up, but there was really no indication. For about half an hour after the call, Dad and I just walked around looking at each other. Neither of us really knew what to do.”

Twomey, a seasoned 25 year-old taken with Carlton’s 51st selection in the 2011 Rookie Draft, recalled a discussion with the Senior Coach some six weeks ago, at which he took on board Ratten’s recommendation to work on specific areas of his game.

“Ratts told me that I’d been slowly working away on them, and that on the weekend he was very impressed with the way I’d gone about my game. He told me that was what he wanted and that’s why I’ve got a gig,” Twomey said.

Twomey’s trek across the Nullabor came at the time he was completing an electrical apprenticeship, when he felt the need to leave familiar digs “and basically live life a little more”. At the time he was chasing the leather for Werribee and on relocating to the west, found a home at Swans.

Back in April, Twomey completed his one and only appearance on the MCG, in a Foxtel Cup fixture for the Northern Bullants against Greater Western Sydney.

“It made an impact big-time,” he recalled. “I remember walking out onto the ground before the game and thinking ‘How good is this?’ - it was like walking on carpet. But it might be a little different with 90,000 people watching on.

“In saying that, I’ve been playing senior footy for seven years now, so I don’t think there’s going to be anything out there that’s going to shock me.

“One of the things I’ve realized since coming to Carlton is that two weeks can be an eternity in League football. Two weeks ago if you’d spoken to me I wouldn’t have thought I was anywhere near a chance, then you have a couple of good weeks and suddenly you pop up. It can happen like that.

“At Swans I probably thought the percentages were against me in terms of getting a chance to play senior AFL football, but getting called up on rookie draft day was as amazing as getting the news today. I’m just gobsmacked.”

Twomey lost his mother Glenys after a brave battle with cancer some 13 years ago. He knows she will be looking down come Saturday afternoon, and that his father Robert, along with his brother and stepbrother, will be watching on from the stands . . . “as long as I can get tickets for them”.