DARREN Flanigan's lasting memory of a young Tom Scully is of him cutting onto his non-preferred right foot to hit a mid-range target at a Berwick football oval.
Rinse, repeat. Forty times.
The knock on the future No.1 pick in the 2009 NAB AFL Draft was his kicking was "not quite there", so he was doing something about it.
It was Scully's famed work ethic on display and enough to distract Flanigan, then TAC Cup club Dandenong Stingrays' region manager, from his conversation with ex-Geelong footballer Ronnie Burns.
Scully was soon the standard-bearer for a golden generation of Stingrays midfielders that became stars on the AFL stage.
There was one training night when Flanigan instructed Michael Hibberd, who was nursing a broken wrist and couldn't practice his skills, to tag Scully everywhere he went.
"Hibbo wasn't the best trainer in those days and he said afterwards, 'I've never been so exhausted in all my life'," Flanigan told AFL.com.au this week with a chuckle.
Three of those midfielders – Scully, Dylan Shiel and Lachie Whitfield – will be key members in Greater Western Sydney's bid to beat Richmond on Saturday and make its first Grand Final. Giants defenders Nick Haynes and Matt Buntine hail from Dandenong's Shepley Oval, too.
Another former Stingray, Adam Treloar, was part of the GWS crew before signing with Collingwood, while Sydney onballer Luke Parker also followed Scully into AFL ranks.
They were all coached by Graeme Yeats, the retired 182-game Demon who was in charge at Dandenong between 2004 and 2013.
"I'm rapt for all of them," Yeats said.
"You can watch kids train and know they're going to be good players, because they apply themselves every drill, execute really well and hone their skills. You can just see they're a level above."
Whitfield, the dux of the 2012 draft class, was the most confident of the bunch.
The smooth mover was laconic, had a strut and used to "push Graeme's buttons", according to Stingrays talent manager Mark Wheeler. Yeats called Whitfield "borderline cocky".
But they both marvelled at Whitfield's extraordinary ability to make even the most difficult kicks under intense pressure look routine.
Whitfield's work in Shepley Oval's dilapidated gym, which has since undergone a major upgrade, is less fondly remembered, in contrast to Shiel's appetite for weights.
"Dylan had a very strong upper body at 16 and you could tell he did a lot of work in the gym, whereas Lachie probably couldn't lift a 10kg barbell – he wasn't all that enamoured with the gym," Yeats said.
"The good thing I can see in Lachie now is he's got a bigger arse, because he didn’t really have much of a bottom. But he still has the power and strength around his core."
Shiel didn't spend as much time at the Stingrays as Scully and Whitfield.
He attended and played the majority of his football for Caulfield Grammar before the Giants scooped him up, along with Treloar, as a 17-year-old access selection in 2011.
Yeats admits now he knew little about what Shiel was capable of before his Dandy debut. He plonked him at half-back and watched as the man-child racked up 35 disposals and "barrelled through blokes".
"Adam just had incredible balance and running power and his step and run was as good as Dylan's," Yeats recalled.
"They played alongside each other as bottom-age players and we were really stiff they both got drafted as 17-year-olds. I would have given anything to coach those boys in their 18th year."
