COUNTRY KID TO STAR CAT

FOOTY hasn’t changed Tom Hawkins. After 200 games, two premierships and a club best and fairest, the hulking Geelong forward is still the young country boy that moved to the big smoke as a teenager to follow his AFL dream.

And that's what everyone loves about him.

“He’s just so well rounded and his family ground him as well,” former coach and teacher Ben Hanisch said ahead of Hawkins’ 200th AFL game against Adelaide at Simonds Stadium tonight.

“He’s never got ahead of himself and is such a down-to-earth person.”

Sandy Robinson and Hawkins were best men at each other’s weddings. They’ve been close since sharing a dorm room together at Melbourne Grammar.

Back then they were just two farm lads who could play footy a bit.

“In Year 9 and 10 you had to do a compulsory language and we somehow ended up doing Japanese. We had no idea what was going on,” Robinson said. “We first met in the boarding house, but our second encounter was when we walked into the Japanese class together. Ben was our Japanese teacher as well as our first footy coach and we got life pretty easy for two years in that subject.

“We honestly couldn’t pronounce one Japanese word, let alone write our names.

“(Then) in the dorm house there were always general shenanigans. He was always up to something, he always wanted to have a laugh with someone.”

Even as a teenager Hawkins was a dominant force physically. Robinson reckons he weighed more back in school than he does now.

“He just used to manhandle kids, even though it was firsts footy he would just tower over them,” Robinson said.

“One day he just laid this big tackle and we went and asked the groundsman to get a shovel to dig the poor kid he tackled out of the middle of the ground.

“The kid probably had 110kg right on top of him. But that’s how he was, he was a big boy.”

Hawkins was quickly moved into Melbourne Grammar’s football team. He travelled to South Australia with the team as a year nine student, even though school rules meant he had to be in year 10 to play.

He might have even managed to sneak on and get a bit of game time during that tour.

When Hawkins returned as a Year 10 student he was ready to set the competition alight.

“In his first game as a year 10 he kicked five goals,” Hanisch said.

“With all of his size he was also highly skilled and there were a few moments, you know, that I remember thinking that it is incredible for someone as big as him to have the skill level he did.

“He is also incredibly powerful for a bloke of his size. He jumped 2m in Year 12 in the high jump in APS athletics. “He was (a mix of) power and skill.”

That’s when Geelong’s interest in Hawkins started to pick up.

Recruiting manager Stephen Wells had been keeping tabs on the prospective father son selection (Tom’s father Jack played for the Cats) and knew he had a pretty decent player on his hands.

Hawkins was selected in the Victoria Metro squad for the national championships in 2006 and was a dominant force, winning the Larke Medal for the best player of the tournament.

“They were his most prominent performances. He was dominant,” Wells said. “He did a great job for Vic Metro and his school. He was a really good team player, a big strong fella and he could read the ball really well through the air.”

The Cats pounced later that year taking him with pick 41 in the national draft.

He made his debut in Round 2 against Carlton, kicking three goals on Lance Whitnall, which was enough to earn a rave review from Blues coach Dennis Pagan.

“Gee, he looks a likely type — I couldn’t help but think he’s an 18year-old Tony Lockett, isn’t he?” Pagan said after the game.

Hawkins, however, kept a lid on it all. “It was good to get the first game over and done with,’’ he told The Addy a decade ago.

He’d go on to play nine more games in 2007, but missed out on the premiership with Cam Mooney and Nathan Ablett holding down key position posts.

Another 10 games followed in 2008 before he became an established player in the senior team in 2009.

Hawkins had eight disposals and kicked two goals in Geelong’s 2009 premiership.

But it in the 2011 grand final he really made his mark.

Hawkins devoured Ben Reid in the third quarter, kicking three goals to lead Geelong to a stunning comefrom-behind victory.

It propelled him to a Carji Greeves victory and selection in the All-Australian team in 2012.

For those who know Hawkins’ game well, it was always just a matter of time before he made up for the slow start to his career and dominated like he did.

“He’s been so focused from such a young age. For a key position player, a bigger body, it was going to take a few years to get cranking. But that’s the media and stuff jumping on his back a bit,” Robinson said. “It does take time.” And despite his rising star, Hawkins always remembered where he came from.

“There was a period in his career where he was struggling and there was a lot of pressure on him . . . I asked him to come back to the school and talk to a student struggling academically but was a talented sportsman and that’s where he wanted to have a career,” Hanisch said. “Tom came back and talked to him about how important it was to make sure he committed to his academic studies as well. To do that when he is having his own difficulties speaks volumes.” Wells said Hawkins had delivered many satisfying moments through his 199 games at the top and was confident there was still plenty more to come. “He is still improving and hopefully he has a lot of footy ahead of him,” Wells said.