At the end of the last Lions tour when the entire cast posed for a team photograph, Rhys Webb appeared to have the world at his feet.
There he was front and centre, slap bang in the middle row, incontrovertible proof that he was within earshot when Romain Poite reprieved the Lions by changing his mind over the legitimate penalty which would have given the All Blacks the series.
The drawn rubber confirmed Webb's ranking among scrumhalves in the home nations, second only to Conor Murray.
Four years on as the Irishman prepares for another Lions tour, his opposite number from Wales is nowhere to be seen.
Players, officials and fans were too busy celebrating Monsieur Poite's kindness in letting the Lions off a hook of their own making to consider the possibility that for one of their number, that night in Auckland would turn out to be as good as it would get.
Normal service duly resumed after his return to Bridgend until injury wiped him out of the 2018 Six Nations. That summer Webb was off again to a place on the Mediterranean where it appeared as though the streets really were paved with gold.
Toulon may have doubled his money but no hindsight is required to understand that even the most lucrative deals can come at a price. Whether Webb would have gone knowing now what he didn't know then, only he can say just as only he can assess the collateral damage.
In respect of lost Test status, Webb is still counting the cost. In their commendable struggle to keep the best players at home against overwhelming odds, the Welsh Rugby Union will doubtless cite the case as an example to those with itchy feet of how a move to France can damage your international health.
Webb will still feel hard done by at having been the biggest victim of the rule which banned any Welshman playing elsewhere from national selection unless he had a minimum of 60 Tests to his name. That eliminated him from the adventure of a lifetime at the World Cup in Japan.
If Webb didn't know the score back then, as he has claimed, his agent would surely have known and advised him accordingly. Neither, of course, had any way of knowing that the fall from grace would gather momentum after Webb had disentangled himself from Toulon and the volcanic eruptions of the presidential money man, Mourad Boudjellal.
Eligible again for Wales from last summer, Webb started the first match of a season grossly distorted by the pandemic. For a while, it looked as though he would be back in the old routine for his country along a path which might lead to the £50,000 bonus of another Lions tour.
Webb played for almost an hour of the friendly against France in Paris, hastily arranged as preparation for the Six Nations finale against Scotland postponed from the previous March. He has not started for Wales since.
Worse was to follow in the New Year. He lost his place in the squad, an absence made all the more conspicuous last Monday when Wales chose to manage without him for next month's matches against Canada and Argentina.
A quartet of scrum-halves had already been picked ahead of him in recent months: Gareth Davies, Lloyd Williams, Kieran Hardy, Tomos Williams. A fifth, Rhodri Williams of the Dragons, has been recalled, seven years after his last international appearance.
It could be argued that the one who always had Conor Murray looking over his shoulder has tumbled far enough down the domestic rankings to be sixth choice for Wales. While only a fool would rule out a scrum-half as good as Rhys Webb, at 32 time is not on his side.
