Steven Marshall achieved something his four predecessors as South Australian Liberal leader failed to do.
He won.
Before Mr Marshall broke a painful 20-year drought for the Liberals, the party had not won an election in SA since 1997.
That previous election win came so long ago that, at the time, the first Harry Potter book had only just been released, John Howard was still settling in as Australia's prime minister and current SA Premier Peter Malinauskas couldn't even vote.
It was momentous for the party, finally toppling a Labor government that spent 16 years on the government benches.
But it was a world-changing event that began two years later, which Mr Marshall's legacy will be defined by.
As the state's premier during the COVID-19 pandemic, he closed borders, put in place lockdowns and other sweeping restrictions, and initially earned significant public praise for his response to the once-in-a-lifetime crisis.
But, eventually, his handling of the virus — and the lifting of travel restrictions — contributed to his government making unwanted history, being turfed out of office after just one term.
Marshall's rapid rise to leadership
Nearly two years after that humbling event — time he spent on the backbench — he has signalled his intent to quit parliament, which will spark a by-election in his inner eastern Adelaide electorate of Dunstan.
It will close the curtain on more than a decade in public life, having first won the seat in 2010, entering parliament as a relative political novice to join a party room known for its factional brawling.
His rise was rapid, becoming then-leader Isobel Redmond's deputy in 2012 before succeeding her less than five months later.
It gave him just over a year to prepare for the 2014 state election, where he faced a third term Labor government led by Jay Weatherill.
Despite securing 53 per cent of the statewide two-party-preferred vote, the Liberals failed to take the seats needed to form government.
There was also the now infamous gaffe the day before the poll when he told people to vote Labor.
At his farewell press conference yesterday, Mr Marshall only half-jokingly called being opposition leader the worst job in South Australia.
He'd know. It was a position he held for more than five years, straddling factional tensions, before tasting electoral success in 2018.
His Liberal government reopened the Repatriation Hospital site at Daw Park, helped to foster new industries, led the redevelopment of the former Royal Adelaide Hospital and cut Emergency Service Levy bills for households.
"I think, in general, the economic transformation of the state is what I want to be remembered for," he said yesterday.
"When we came to government, we had thousands of young people leaving the state every single year. We've turned that around now, we've got a strong economy, one of the strongest in the entire nation, we've done well to reverse that brain-drain."
And then there's COVID.
Term marked by controversies
He led South Australia at the height of the pandemic, steering the response along with Police Commissioner Grant Stevens, Chief Public Health Officer Nicola Spurrier and former health minister Stephen Wade.
The state's COVID management earned praise for helping SA avoid many of the larger outbreaks and long lockdowns that hit other parts of the country.
Mr Marshall himself acknowledges COVID management was "a massive milestone".
"When you're the premier, especially during something like the pandemic, you make thousands and thousands of decisions, some you might get wrong, but I don't leave office with any major regrets whatsoever," he said yesterday.
In office, Mr Marshall took on the defence, space, Aboriginal and veterans affairs and the arts portfolios, and he would often be seen at performances.
But there were also controversies.
Party unity frayed over changes to the state's Mining Act, which saw four MPs cross the floor and vote with Labor.
The country members accommodation allowance saga cost ministers and senior office holders their positions.
His deputy, former attorney-general Vickie Chapman, stood aside during an investigation into her decision to refuse a deep sea port on Kangaroo Island — which later cleared her of wrong doing.
The party ended the term in minority, with three government MPs shifting to the cross bench for various reasons during the four years in office.
Meanwhile, the decision to re-open the state's borders within months of the 2022 election, as the Omicron COVID variant took hold, would prove pivotal to the Liberals re-election hopes.
Dunstan by-election an 'opportunity' for voters
Pandemic fatigue, plus a Labor campaign focused heavily on health and ambulance ramping, coupled with a lacklustre offering from the Liberals, all contributed to defeat after one term.
On his way out, Mr Marshall was keen to draw battle lines for the looming by-election campaign by targeting his successor and Labor's promises.
"I genuinely believe is this is an opportunity for the people of Dunstan to tell Peter Malinauskas he hasn't got this right," he said.
"He got elected promising to fix ramping, it was very clear, and I think the people of South Australia believed him that he had a plan to do that. Well, he hasn't."
Mr Malinauskas disagrees, despite ramping rising to record levels.
"We're the only party with a plan for health in our state," he said yesterday.
"We're the only party that's increasing bed capacity, increasing resources, recruiting nurses and doctors versus what their plans were, which was to reduce the size of the health workforce."
While the exact timing of Mr Marshall's departure is unclear, he has remained in parliament longer than his predecessor Jay Weatherill, who triggered a by-election less than a year after Labor's 2018 election.