Phillip Hughes has been remembered by family, friends and teammates in a moving documentary

A new documentary on the life of Phillip Hughes reveals some never heard before tales from teammates and family 10 years after the incredible young cricketer’s life was cut tragically short.

Nine days after Phillip Hughes became the youngest Australian to score centuries in both innings of a Test, and it wasn’t until the next match was due to start, that Ricky Ponting realised just how much his young prodigy had enjoyed himself.

“It was the morning of the last Test (against South Africa in Cape Town). I came down for breakfast and I was walking through reception to go to the breakfast room and I look over and two blokes are just aimlessly walking through reception and it was Hughesy, and I probably shouldn’t name the other bloke, it was Peter Siddle,” the former Australian captain reveals on the new Phillip Hughes documentary, A Boy from Macksville.

“I looked at them and said, ‘What are you doing?’ And they said, ‘Where is the breakfast room?’ … they had no idea where the breakfast room was … because they hadn’t been to breakfast for the entire week in between Tests.”

Phillip Hughes lit up the cricket world when he was selected to play for Australia.

Added Hughes’ opening partner Simon Katich with a grin: “From memory I reckon Hughesy gave it a pretty good nudge.”

The main emotion while watching A Boy from Macksville, a documentary directed by master story teller Adam Burnett, is joy.

There is no escaping the heaviness of Hughes’ tragic passing 10 years ago, but this hour-long special aired on Fox Cricket and Channel 7 on Friday night brings back the memories of how much fun it was to watch Hughes in action.

We know how Hughes’ personality resonated with the Australian public because of the way the nation stopped for the days following the moment he was struck at the SCG.

But this documentary is a timely reminder of why.

The cheeky smile, the humble nature, the fact he never lost sight of where he came from. And of course those exquisite left-hand cut shots that would slice opposition teams to ribbons as the ball raced to the fence time after time.

Phillip Hughes with his great mate Peter Siddle.

It’s a simple thing, but it’s beautiful just to see Hughes’ in action again through the match replays and behind-the-scenes footage and hear his voice in the interviews uncovered for this brilliant tribute.

We see the backyard where Hughes’ journey to Test cricket began and there is something about those dents in the brown fence made from honing that cut shot that stirs up feelings that the Hughes story really was a fairytale.

There’s footage of Hughes going back to Macksville during his Test career, and the smile of an elderly woman embracing him at the pub which says everything about how this boy was a true local hero.

It’s impossible not to smile when you see Hughes dancing for Indian fans as he alights the team bus, singing the Worcester team song, or cracking himself up when he concedes to a TV reporter he might be the “dumbest” bloke in the team.

How good it is to revisit that debut in Johannesburg and then the twin hundreds in Durban in his second Test against the world-class attack of Dale Steyn, Morne Morkel and Makhaya Ntini.

‘I love it’: Ricky Ponting and Phillip Hughes share a smile batting against South Africa at Kingsmead Stadium.

When the lid started to pop off the saucepan in a sledging battle with Morkel, Ponting walked down the pitch to try to protect his young charge.

“I asked him, ‘How you going with this?’ He looked at me with this grin and said, ‘I f***ing love it mate, I love it,” Ponting says.

Usman Khawaja gives the Australian selectors from the time a fair clip for the way they chopped and changed Hughes out of the team and affected his “psyche” – even calling them “horrible”.

But his ex-teammates are adamant Hughes was destined to play 100 Tests regardless of his early treatment.

Khawaja talks about how he feels Hughes’ talent and spirit lives on in Australia’s current free-wheeling left-hander Travis Head, who was there by his side in that fateful final match for South Australia.

The other triumph of this documentary is the Hughes family.

Mural of Phillip Hughes and Greg Inglis in Macksville.

The utter devastation experienced by his parents, Greg and Virginia, brother Jason and sister Megan 10 years ago was heartbreaking.

To see their agony resurface at the coronial inquest that followed was just as harrowing and it felt then like they may never embrace the game of cricket again.

Therefore watching Greg smile as he sits in his field and gently reminisces about his son’s career in this documentary is incredibly moving.

“That touches me a bit that,” Greg says as he reflects on how Hughes always shared that natural affiliation with the everyday man.

There is also great hope and inspiration in the way Virginia embarks on the trip down memory lane at the family’s Macksville property and pays tribute to her Phillip.

“He loved his cricket, he loved being away … But he loooooved coming home,” she says in the closing line of the documentary.

Jason chokes back tears as he says how he misses his brother, but he can’t wait to share Phillip’s legacy with his two sons.

And in doing so, the Hughes family has bravely shown future generations that as well as the inescapable sorrow, their son’s legacy is also a story of joy.