COVER STORY

Blistering speed and silky skills are propelling Tasmanian teenage sensation Tarryn Thomas on a rocket-ship ride destined for the big league

Teenager Tarryn Thomas is set to join the AFL highflyers – but still keeps both feet on the ground, thanks to his family

Sitting across the dining table from Tarryn Thomas in his family’s Hadspen home, it is difficult to picture this lanky, softly spoken teenager as potentially one of Australia’s future sporting heroes. But according to virtually everyone who has ever coached him or watched him play, the young Tasmanian’s name soon will be frequently used by AFL commentators as they announce goals kicked by Thomas on the national stage.

At the AFL draft in November, the North Melbourne Football Club will have first rights to sign Thomas, who has been trained at the club’s Next Generation Academy. Speculation is that Thomas will be in the top three most sought-after draft picks, based on his astonishing versatility on the field, valuable speed and agility, and sheer natural talent.

This is a boy who, in 2016, aged 16, was named Tasmania’s best player in both the under-16 and under-18 carnivals in the same season.

Thomas has played for North Launceston in the TSL, represented Tasmania with the Mariners, and is currently playing for the Allies squad in the NAB Under-18 Academy series, along with 12 other young Tasmanian hopefuls.

His chances of playing in the AFL next season have been described as “as certain as Donald Trump saying something stupid tomorrow”, by one veteran sports journalist.

But don’t think for a moment all this raw talent and expectation has gone to his head. Thomas is making a conscious effort not to spend too much time thinking about what lies ahead, preferring to just keep his feet planted firmly in the now.

“Yeah I hear people talking about me, my mates keep a close eye on the draft and they keep telling me the latest, all of that, but I try to block it out, mostly,” he says.

“I’m not thinking too much about it, I’m just keeping my mind on the job, I just want to play good footy, that’s it.” For all his Aussie rules prowess, Thomas nearly ended up a rugby league man.

His family is Tasmanian Aboriginal but Thomas grew up in the league heartland of Sydney, where he played for the St Clair Comets as a kid, showing great early promise as a league player. His junior side won back-to-back premierships and Thomas was on a pathway towards playing with the Penrith Panthers when the family packed up and moved back to Tasmania, where his grandmother was seriously ill.

They moved to Hadspen just outside of Launceston and Thomas, then aged 12, started attending Summerdale Primary school, where he began playing AFL. His grandmother died but the Thomas family remained in Tasmania and Tarryn continued with his new obsession, Aussie rules.

As a teenager he played for the North Launceston under-16 side and on the same day as his 16th birthday he progressed to the senior side, where he more than held his own against much older, bigger and more experienced players. His skills kept improving and drawing more attention from bigger leagues, seeing him picked for the Tassie Mariners to represent the state in the AFL national under-18 championship, and North Melbourne selected him to train with its Next Generation Academy, essentially putting Thomas on a path towards playing in the AFL.

And by this time next year, he will most likely be there.

Sport is a huge part of Thomas’s family life. His dad, Jason Thomas, grew up in Burnie and played footy in local clubs around Tasmania and Melbourne, later going into coaching as well.

“There were a few others in the family who played as well, some second cousins and so on,” Jason says.

“Some played for Launceston and North Launceston, and I played for local sides like Hagley and North Launceston in my junior days as well. I moved around a bit as a young fella.”

Even Tarryn’s 10-year-old brother, Tyane, is already showing a lot of potential as a junior footballer.

The whole family is footy-mad, which makes it a little bit surprising that Tarryn doesn’t even have a favourite team in the AFL.

“Yeah, I dunno, I used to go for Sydney, for Dad, and we used to live there but then we moved and I haven’t really had a team after that.”

With all the attention from the North Melbourne Kangaroos at the moment – club representatives have even been to visit the Thomas family at home – Jason seems happy to change his colours, though. On the day TasWeekend visited the family home, Jason was wandering around wearing blue-and-white Kangas’ socks.

“Hey, it’s cold,” he shrugs with only a hint of good-humoured defensiveness. “I need to keep my feet warm.”

Club allegiances have just never been on the radar for Tarryn – he loves the game for the sake of the game. But he admits he will probably have to start supporting a team if he gets drafted by one.

“I suppose if someone picks me they’re going to become my team, right?” he laughs.

“But really, I just enjoy the game, making new friends and playing against new people.

“Playing AFL has always been a goal, though, a dream. It’s still a long way off, I’m not there yet. I’ve been training with North Melbourne for a while now, I’m getting used to that level of training. It’s heaps different from what I’m used to, it’s intense, but I like it.”

Former North Launceston coach Zane Littlejohn, who is now a development coach for the Brisbane Lions, says Thomas’s willingness to learn and improve has always been his greatest asset as a young player.

“I met him around 2012 as a young kid in our juniors, and he was super competitive even then, which is one of his major strengths,” Littlejohn says.

“He is so eager to compete, he can play in any position purely because of that competitive nature, his hunger to succeed. Because of that, he is always keen to improve and learn. He has natural talent, which is nice, but he has that work ethic to want to improve, he listens and learns from observing other players as well.

“I have no doubt he will be the same from the moment he walks into an AFL club. He has a great opportunity here, and something that has always been consistent about Tarryn is the higher the level he reaches in the game, the better he becomes, he always takes every opportunity to skill up. He just loves being challenged.”

Notice when Littlejohn refers to Thomas’s AFL prospects, he talks about it in terms of “when”, not “if”. This tendency is common to everyone who speaks about Thomas: the absolute certainty that soon, inevitably, this talented young man WILL be an AFL star.

“He really is just an outstanding young prospect, there’s no question about it,” says veteran AFL recruiter Scott Clayton. “In this year’s draft there is a very strong top 10-12 players, an elite group at the front, and he is in that group.

“North Melbourne has first right to pick him and I’d be very surprised if they didn’t. He’s a valuable pick, he can play anywhere on the field and he will be one of the great players one day.”

The word versatile is one that crops up frequently when discussing Thomas, as well. Part of his thirst for self-improvement is a willingness to play any position on the field and learn to do them all well.

He is so good in every position that AFL Tasmania Southern Academy manager Mathew Armstrong says it is almost a shame to have to pick just one for him to play.

“I just think he is a good complete package: good speed, outstanding skills by hand or foot at tempo, a very good aerialist, good one-on-one, he now stands around 190cm tall so he can play anywhere, defence, forward, on the ball in midfield, inside midfield, he can be put wherever you need him during the game,” Armstrong says.

“Personally, I like him as an inside midfielder but you can roll him forward when you need a goal as well. I’m not sure where an AFL team would use him.”

Thomas has his favourite position, too. “Probably midforward,” he says. “Playing around the ball, that plays to my strengths, I think.

“They tried to play me more mid this year, get my tank up so I can run more, but I can play anywhere. I like a game with a lot of running, though.”

Something else Thomas really likes is, well, lots of stuff, actually. He says he gets sick of talking about football all the time. He says this with no resentfulness or bitterness, but merely with a little shrug of the shoulders, matter-of-fact. With all the buzz and excitement surrounding him right now, it can be easy to forget Thomas is still just a teenager, and as much as he loves footy – he trains three times a week, plus gym sessions – he does have a life outside the sport.

“I need to get my head out of it sometimes, everyone asks me about it all the time. I have other interests and hobbies, just stuff like any other teenager, I guess. Spending time with my family, watching movies, fishing in the summer, hanging with my mates.

“Rhyan Mansell (another Tasmanian hopeful playing in the Allies squad) is a cousin and I like going to a quiet place, spending some time with him, and we can both just talk about any- thing other than footy. He understands how important it is, he’s in a similar situation.”

Thomas describes himself as a true home body, preferring to just spend time with his family over anything else. Part of this relates to his Tasmanian Aboriginal heritage, with close family ties being important within this community.

His dad Jason and stepmum Fiona Hughes agree the extended family and cultural foundations of the Aboriginal community have played a huge part in helping Tarryn to stay grounded, and will continue to do so into any professional future he might have.

“Fiona and I are very active in the Aboriginal community. We’ve been busy doing lots of events for Reconciliation Week and that cultural side of life is very important to us,” Jason says.

“And it’s also good for Tarryn to get out there in the community, he’s a role model for the young Aboriginal fellas. He can get out there and show there is fun and commitment in his life, and that commitment is taking him places.

“Family is vital, too. Any sporting person, I think, needs family around them.

“I think that’s something that a lot of the great Aboriginal players have going for them, actually. They have their culture, and in that AFL scene they can take a break, go back home and lose themselves in the old people’s way of life for a while. It helps you keep that balance in life, as well as your footy, your job, to have that cultural life, be an inspiration to the young ones.”

Tarryn and Jason also play local C-grade cricket together, as a fun father-and-son activity, which Jason describes as “something easy and friendly, a bit of relaxation away from football”.

Tarryn shows some skill as a cricketer as well, but has been warned not to play higher-grade cricket during the summer, as the risk of injury during the off-season is too high. And there is also school to consider. North Melbourne has given Thomas a scholarship to St Patrick’s College in Launceston, which helps to remind the 18-year-old that he is still expected to finish school before attempting his football career. “You need to have a job outside of footy,” he says. “If you can’t play for some reason or get injured, you need to have something else, a career.

“I’m studying English, maths and two sports subjects at school. I’m looking at maybe doing personal training as a career. I like to be doing something physical and active all the time.”

Jason says he is thankful Tarryn has been able to keep some distance from the politics that surrounds professional sport, a fortunate by-product of living in Hadspen.

“It’s lucky that we’re not in that AFL/Melbourne bubble, with someone in his ear all the time. He has a manager and North Melbourne is always in regular contact with us, but it’s nice to be down here away from all that.

“At some of those bigger games Tarryn has played interstate, I can see the other parents and how seriously they all take it, the pressure they put on their kids, but we’re just not into all that.

“He’s still a young man growing up. What he has is a gift, and I do use that word. But more than anything he enjoys it, he just really enjoys it.”

Tarryn knows better than to count his chickens before they’re hatched, too. He is probably more aware than anyone else around him that he still has a hard road ahead before there is any chance of donning an AFL club uniform.

He is a one-step-at-a-time kind of guy, preferring to focus on the immediate next challenge, rather than gazing into the future. And his current challenge is one that might not earn him much sympathy.

“They keep telling me I need to put on weight,” he laughs. “Because I’m quite tall, I need to be heavier, but I just can’t do it. I’m trying. All I do is eat and try to build muscle bulk but I can’t seem to do it. I’ll keep trying.”