For years, it has only existed in conversation, a quiet hope passed between brothers, never feeling real enough to hold onto.

With Manase Fainu inching toward the light at the end of a long, painful tunnel, that dream is beginning to take shape.

The former NRL hooker, once one of the game's promising young talents, is eligible for parole in October, the same month he turns 28.

He has been using whatever time and space is available to stay fit, to stay ready, to stay connected to a life the game once promised him.

It is a life his three brothers, Sione, Samuela, and Latu, are all living now.

They are all contracted to the Wests Tigers, all forging their own paths down a road Manase was the first to walk.

A fourth brother in orange and black could no longer be a fantasy. However, the NRL would need to clear Manase's registration, and a club would need to take a chance on a man whose career collapsed in 2019 when he was accused of stabbing a youth leader during a brawl at a Mormon church dance.

He was stood down under the no-fault stand-down policy, prosecuted, and eventually imprisoned.

Speaking to The Daily Telegraph, Samuela Fainu revealed his family's hopes and the weight of the years that have passed.

"As a family, we are extremely close, and it has been difficult for us to be separated from Manase for a number of years," Samuela said.

"There's not a day goes by that he's not in our thoughts.

"My brothers and I have started our own NRL journeys on a path he blazed for our family, and he could have been there in person.

"Of course, we've spoken about the potential to one day play NRL together, but for so long it has just seemed like a distant dream.

"If Manase wants to pick up his rugby league career when the time is right, we will be right behind him."

Should it ever come to pass, the Fainus would make history.

Only twice in rugby league's long history have four brothers appeared in top-grade football.

The Normans in 1910 and the Burgess family in 2013.

The mother of the four Fainu brothers, Lile Fainu, would love nothing more than to see Manase return to playing rugby league.

"It's our dream to see all the boys play together in the NRL one day," she said.

"It's something they've always wanted to do, and we know Manase would love nothing more than to return to the field when the time is right."

For now, the family awaits, counting down the months, keeping the faith, and holding onto a dream that, for the first time in a long time, doesn't feel so distant.