Tom Boyd was on a small island in Indonesia, a three-hour boat trip from anywhere. He had no phone reception, limited access to the internet, nothing on his mind but surfing and no idea what was about to happen when he logged onto the Wi-Fi and read that Ryan Griffen had quit his club, funnily enough to the disgust of one of the Western Bulldog-supporting friends he was travelling with. Seconds later, a message flashed through from his manager. Suddenly, he had some thinking to do. "The Bulldogs won't trade Griffen," said Liam Pickering, "unless they do it for you."
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
Boyd could talk through all the reasons his first year at Greater Western Sydney didn't turn out how he hoped it would, and wanted it to. How he struggled to find time away from football, and footballers, which led him to think too much about what wasn't going right and how he could make it better. How he got a little too heavy, still working out what shape he needed his body to be in, and didn't feel as agile as he always had. How hard it was to balance his expectations and ambition with being in and out of the senior team until a six-game stretch late in the season. How he needed to keep reminding himself that he was only one year in, that things were going to get better.
"It was a strange year, and I'm sure I was a little impatient," Boyd said. "I could never get into any rhythm, and all I wanted was to get into rhythm. That was frustrating. And because that was frustrating, other things became that way as well. It just never felt like things were going well."
Still, Boyd went overseas to get ready for his second summer, with no plans to play for any team other than the Giants in 2015 and with an open mind about signing on with the club for longer if everything went well. He wanted to do the exact same things he does now: get better, at everything he can think of. But the decision to leave didn't take too long and wasn't particularly difficult because not many 19-year-olds get offered long and lucrative deals to do what they want to do in their home city. "I don't feel like I decided to leave, because it hadn't been in my thoughts at all," he said. "I feel like circumstances came together because of Ryan Griffen's decision, because the Bulldogs wanted a forward, and because of the type of player I am. There was an opportunity given to me, and it was too good to pass up."
Still, it brought with it some stress. Boyd knew what it would mean to ask for a trade, as the Giants' No.1 draft pick less than 12 months earlier. He understood the club would be unhappy with him, "because I was the one to put them in a difficult position". In one way, Boyd was glad he was so far away, because he has a tendency to want all the information he can get and would have been drawing conclusions after every conversation he took part in or heard about. At the same time, riding less frequent bumps was almost harder. When the Giants said they would refuse to trade him, Boyd believed them. When Pickering told him not to worry and that the deal would get done, he allowed himself to relax.
Before the trade went through, he sent messages to Giants coach Leon Cameron and chief executive David Matthews, feeling like he needed them to hear how he was feeling from him, rather than other people. "I felt the whole time like I'd just been a third party. My dad was dealing with them more than I had and I had never really put my own spin on it and had the chance to sit down and talk to them about what was going through my head and what I was thinking," he said. "I just reassured them that I'd taken my time and that the gravity of the situation wasn't lost on me. In the end it wasn't about them or the club, it was about the opportunity that was given to me."
There was more Boyd needed to think about. But becoming the young key forward the Bulldogs have searched so desperately for has never bothered him. It's what he wants to be, and he has always expected more of himself than anyone else has been able to. What was difficult was having his contract become so public, even though he understood that was also inevitable. It still feels a little awkward. "I do find it pretty hard to deal with. Mostly because it's not exactly right, people are guessing a bit, but when the same number keeps being published, then that makes it true in everyone's eyes and I appreciate that," said Boyd, who has heard all of the jokes, and been asked for loans from people he has never met before.
"It's like being called tall 100 times when you're a kid; you think, 'I haven't heard that one before.' But I have a very good group of friends who know it doesn't matter and would never talk about it, and that it would never affect me. What matters is being back home, and being around the people close to me and being lucky enough to do what every person wants, your dream job in the city you grew up in and want to live in. But it has been hard to get used to, because I think what happens is people can assume they know you and know what you're about and what matters to you. And what I am and what matters is that I'm a 19-year-old going into my second year who has a long way to go."
So far, so good. Walking into the Bulldogs has felt almost like getting started at the Giants, given all the young players at both clubs. That he knew a few of them before he got to Whitten Oval made it easier. Boyd is sharing a house with Richmond player Nick Vlastuin, seeing his dogs, spending time with people who don't play football and "feeling like a proper part of the family again, which is naturally a bit harder when you're living in another city and when the chances you do get to catch up are so rushed and don't last for very long".
Mostly he is training, working out where he will fit into his new team and what he has to do to make sure the Bulldogs keep feeling glad they got him. "I want to play the way I know I can play, have more energy when I'm around the ball and get to a point where I feel like I'm playing my natural game. But there's so much I have to learn and at the moment I've got to be able to do whatever the team needs me to, turn up and compete and do my job," Boyd said.
"I said to Nick the other day, I wonder how I would have treated draft night last year knowing how much things were going to change and how different my life would become. But in a way nothing has changed. I'm at a club I didn't think I would be at, but you move fairly quickly once you're in the system from being someone who wants to play well and perform straight away, to someone who needs to play well. That's how I want it to be. So everything has changed, but nothing has, when you look at what's in front of me and what I want and need to do."
