By Rebecca Mills

Two of the most exciting young guns at the Greater Western Sydney GIANTS instinctively look for each other on the field. It’s a hard habit to break for Dom Tyson and Adam Tomlinson because they’ve been doing it since they were eleven.

The pair were instant friends when they first played together in the Under 12 Victorian School Football team and went on to play together at Trinity Grammar in Melbourne and at the Oakleigh Chargers in the TAC Cup.

“We first met when we were trying out for the Under 12s. I just remember thinking, who’s this tall kid with the bowl cut and the tipped blonde hair,” Tyson said.

“We found out that we were both going to the same secondary school and we were close from there. My older brother was already at Trinity so I was always going there and Adam got a scholarship.”

The close bond between the two players on and off the footy field is obvious and they laugh when they tell stories about their school days.

According to Tomlinson, their friendship transferred on to the field where the two talented youngsters would rely on each other instinctively.

“We would look for each other, especially in school footy.

“We would just kick to each other on the field. The best was when Dom was in the midfield and I was up forward because you knew where he would kick and I’d run there and mark the ball.

“We were all a really close group but they’d teamed up on me a bit,” said Tomlinson.

Tyson disagrees.

“We were all mates, it was just general banter but we did get him a few times.

“When we were in year 12, my mate Nick and I played a prank on Adam.

“We pretended that we were the owners of a nightclub and called Adam to say that we’d spoken to a few people from around the area and they seem to know him as quite a popular guy and that we’d like him to be a promoter.

“We got him to confirm his interest by sending a message to his friends on Facebook, telling them to use his list on the door– which he did.

“When he arrived at school the next day, we started a chant to break the news to him and we called him the promoter after that.”

At the end of 2011, the two prepared to part ways as they headed in to the NAB AFL National Draft.

What they didn’t realize was that they would both be picked up by the AFL’s newest club Dom at number 3 and Adam at number 9 and would be packing their bags and moving to Western Sydney together.

“At the start of last year, we didn’t think that we would both be drafted. Towards the end of the year, we thought that we’d both be drafted but we didn’t think that we’d be drafted to the same place,” Tomlinson explains.

“We played our last game of the season thinking that it would be our last game together.

“We knew that Dom was probably going to go high in the draft and come up here but I had no idea.

“Brisbane came to me a few days before the draft and they had a few high picks so I thought it was either going to be here or Queensland.

“Dad wanted me to go to the GIANTS because it was a new club and the start of something new and mum agreed because she knew that Dom would be here and we knew a lot of people from the AIS.”

Tyson also has fond memories of the life changing draft night in November.

“I saw him (Adam) on the bus on the way to the draft and I looked at him like ‘do you have any idea where you’re going’ and he shook his head.

“His name was called out first because they count down the top ten backwards so I was pumped.

“It was a really good night; there was a lot happening; a lot of new faces and a lot of media commitments. It was a great experience, you’re excited and your heart is pounding the whole time.”

Now, Tyson and Tomlinson are settled at the GIANTS and are learning to deal with the demands on full time football.

While the stakes are higher at AFL level, Tomlinson says that at times, he still feels like it’s just another game with his mate.

“It is very different but there are similarities too. We are at an AFL club but I still see it as just another game of football with Dom.

“When we were playing in the NAB Cup I still knew where he was going to run and where I should kick it.”

With a number of young draftees from the Victorian TAC Cup system, Tyson said that the same can be said for a few of his GIANTS’ team mates.

“When you play along side people for a while, you learn about their game.

“You learn habits of theirs. You know which foot they’re going to kick with if they are more likely to handball or kick in certain situations.

“It’s still hard to know what they are going to do with the football every single time and we are constantly learning so our habits are changing as we play.”