Depending on how you look at it, the 26-year-old South Australian is either a survivor or yet another uncomfortable legacy of reality television ??? in this case, of the AFL's not exactly successful foray into the concept.

Wagner won the first series of Fox Footy's The Recruit. A country footballer who emerged victorious and was taken by Port Adelaide in a much-publicised staged bidding as a category B rookie in September 2014, he was delisted without managing a senior game 12 months later with no job and a series of injuries to show for it.

But what Wagner remembers now is not so much his body breaking down but the emotional pressure of not feeling as if he really belonged.

Although he insists he has no axe to grind with Port or his short-lived teammates, other players and coaches at the club at the time admit he was not always made to feel welcome.

"Because I didn't come in to the club the normal way, I didn't really feel I deserved to be there," said Wagner, in a conversation this week before heading back to the South Australian outback where he lives every second week on a campsite.

"One minute you're introducing yourself to guys you've watched for years on TV and then you're sharing lockers with them and training with them. I probably never really felt I belonged. It was a lot tougher coming in the unusual way I did and I felt because of that I had to work so much harder."

Wagner contacted Matt Eagles, the Brisbane Lion rookie drafted through The Recruit's second series.

"I spoke to him about it and how it's a bit daunting," said Wagner. "I told him just to introduce yourself and be yourself and tell yourself you deserve to be there. I don't know if he struggles to mingle or not, but I warned him it was not so much the physical challenge but the mental challenge.

"I just put far too much mental pressure on myself. If I had a bad training session or I didn't hit targets I'd come home and just get so down on myself."

Others at Port spoke with some regret of Wagner's baptism of fire, arriving in the severe pre-season heat of Dubai and feeling ??? without much encouragement the other way ??? every bit the outsider.

An apprentice electrician, Wagner was sacked from his job during the filming of The Recruit because he was spending too much time away from his day job. Although Port, when the club delisted him, asked him to stay and play for the SANFL Port Magpies, he chose to return to Port Lincoln and try to find work.

"I reckon I've just given up on that whole system. I wanted to focus on finding a job and supporting my fiancee."

Unable to find work to date in his home town where fiancee Kiah Eldridge works in a local cafe, Wagner enlisted in the mines. Playing his beloved local football is no longer a priority. He has managed one game this season at Roxby Downs, which came after a long night in the mine.

Although The Recruit looks finished as a men's series, Fairfax Media understands there remains some interest in the concept as far as AFL Women's is concerned. The view is that the fledgling nature of the national women's league and the random success stories it has already produced could work perfectly for a concept that failed in terms of the professional men's game.

Wagner's view is that The Recruit could have worked and his own chance at the AFL could have become a reality had the program's winner been given two years, not one, to make the grade.

"I don't think a one-year contract was enough," he said. "I was coming in so underdone and I think with a two-year contract your body would have the chance to get used to the challenges.

"In the end I just put too much pressure on myself. I tried to play through the pain - I know that's what every player has to do all the time - but because I didn't feel I deserved to be there, I probably ended up overdoing it and my body just broke down."

The Recruit was produced by McGuire Media with the strong backing of the AFL, which rearranged its calendars around the two series finales.

Wagner emerged victorious from series one, which aired over the winter of 2014. Eagles, the series two winner in 2016, is a 200-centimetre ruckman with a dreadlocked, devil-may-care demeanour who has become a popular member of the Lions locker room. Although he has demonstrated significant improvement over this season he remains unlikely to win promotion from the NEAFL.

Not surprisingly McGuire's Collingwood, along with the heavily dependent Brisbane and GWS, were the only three clubs involved in the bidding for Eagles, whose category B Rookie pathway is not funded by the club but by the competition. Just as Brisbane and the Giants were tapped on the shoulder last year, Gold Coast was "strongly encouraged" by the AFL to bid for Wagner alongside Port in 2014.

The reality concept ironically was first thrown up by former AFL boss Andrew Demetriou more than a decade ago at a club CEOs meeting with a view to attracting elite athletes from NSW and Queensland into the game.

So perhaps it is fitting that the game's newest pioneers - AFL Women's - loom as the potential saviour of a concept that has failed to make its mark in terms of a genuine talent search.

Meanwhile Wagner has his memories, cold comfort perhaps during the six-hour drive from Port Lincoln to the mining camp at Roxby Downs, and says there were elements of the experience he enjoyed. He singled out assistant coach Garry Hocking and welfare manager Marcus Drum for their support of him during his rookie season and says he remains in touch with some former teammates through social media.

"As it turned out it was tough for me and a bit of a financial setback," he said. "But I went in open-minded and if I had the chance to do it all again I would. Those guys who go through 10 or 15 seasons and pre-seasons - I take my hat off to them.

"I think it could work. It just didn't work out for me."