“We really liked Tommy in his draft year (2008) when the Saints picked him at No.13.

“We would’ve loved to have drafted Tom then but we rated Phil Davis a bit higher, so we took Phil Davis with our first pick at No.10 and then ‘Lynchy’ was gone by our next pick.

“We actually liked the look of Tommy as a midfielder. I saw him have 45 touches down at Gippsland one day. It was a bit wet and he just got the ball out of the ruckman’s hand. He was outstanding. He was really good at the Under-18 National Championships and, in particular, in a game between Vic Metro and Tassie down at Bellerive Oval when he played as a half-forward/midfielder.

“We still haven’t seen Tom play as a pure mid at AFL level. We’ve seen him play behind the ball in the SANFL and VFL and as a forward in our AFL team, but we still don’t really know whether he can play midfield for the Crows. I always thought he might be a big midfielder.

“We interviewed Tommy in the sports office at Haileybury College with his Dad back in ‘08’. His Dad was a director of sport at the school. It was me, Matty Rendell, Tommy and his Dad. We ended up talking about cricket and Shane Warne for ages during the interview! He just loved sport and he still does as we saw in his football tour of the US with Josh Jenkins recently.

“Because we liked Tom in his 18th year at Sandringham and for Vic Metro, we kept tracking him even after he was drafted by St Kilda. We saw that he wasn’t getting a game even though he dominated in the VFL. He was clearly too good for the level and thought he could add to our playing list.

“Tommy just wanted an opportunity to play AFL. He has the same manager as ‘Danger’ and Paul Connors was really happy for Lynchy to get a chance at another club. The Saints were happy with that too. They didn’t see a position for him there and gave him their blessing.

“It was an easy trade to do. St Kilda were easy to work with. At the end of 2011, we had a pick coming to us through the trade with Richmond for Ivan Maric, so we did a little three-way swap. It was straight forward.”