Former Lismore High student Tom Brown, 20, had a career highlight as part of the NSW team that stormed through the Under-21s National Championships held at Goonellabah last month. For this week’s Sunday Profile, Tom talked about this significant homecoming, what it was like donning the green and gold for the first time for the Australian under-21s team and his goal of someday playing for the Kookaburras.

I was about four years old when I first started playing hockey. My older brother started playing and I just got dragged along and we started playing together. My whole family has always played hockey. Both my parents played and my uncles and pop played. I don't how much further it went back than that.

The thing I love the most about hockey is the camaraderie. Our club at home, Coraki, is just like a family. All my mates and stuff there that I’ve grown up with, they're not just my friends. They're almost brothers. I love that.

It's been the same since I've moved to Sydney. The club I play with now, Ryde, they're exactly the same. It's an awesome family club.

I also like the fact that you're not getting tackled by 120kg fellas every week like you are in footie. There's plenty of running. It's an exciting game. There's lots of different facets to the skills and you have to adapt and change. There's always something you can get better at, different ways you can approach the game to make it more exciting. You never get bored with it.

I've always dreamed of playing for Australia since I was a little fella. I think I was about 12 when I made my first NSW team, in the under 13s. It was the best thing ever. I was so excited. I couldn't get enough of it.

We were driving home and I said that's it, that's really what I want to do. It’s been the dream since then.

At that time I was one of the top players of my age group, and I thought this is cool I'll keep going with it, but it wasn't until I was 16 or 17 when I realised that this could be something serious if I really knuckled down and have a bit of a crack with it.

Both my mum and dad have been big inspirations. Both my uncles have been in a big influence as well through the club. I always played with them when I was growing up and they always challenged me and pushed me to play harder.

As far as coaches, Adrian McGrath was a big influence on me and Warren “Busta” Birmingham, who is a former Australian hockey player and from Coraki himself.

Warren coached me since I was about 13 until I was 17 when I left Lismore. We developed a pretty strong relationship. We'd see each other pretty much every day for training and hockey and all that. We're still in contact. Whenever I make a team or something I'll send him a photo of the shirt and say thanks mate, I really appreciate everything. It's still going a long way what he did for me.

Adrian's the same and all the club the coaches I had when I was growing up, like Robbie Powell. The hours that they all put in to get everyone to enjoy it and play at different levels is amazing. Everyone succeeds in different ways and I was just lucky to go as well as I did, I guess.

I’ve got to give big thanks to Coraki Hockey Club, Lismore High School and everyone. All the support I've had from up there is awesome.

Playing in the Under-21s National Championships in Lismore last month was unreal. It was so cool. I'd never played at that level in Lismore before. Just to have my family and mates around, to show them what it's like; how quick and how good it is. It's just a different level of hockey.

It's a different game. It's so quick. You can't be off the ball half a centimetre because the other team's got it then. To show everyone in Lismore the level that it is was pretty special, definitely.

We won it too. Going through undefeated was bloody special. To celebrate up there and share that moment with everyone and my family was pretty cool.

I've had a few trips overseas for hockey. I went to India at the start of last year with the NSW Institute of Sport. It was more of a development tour for the institute but it was sensational to go to a country where they live for hockey like that. Obviously cricket's huge, but hockey's a big sport there too.

We played in front of 33,000 people in a little country town and every single one of them was trying to jump the fence and get on the field and get signatures and photos. It was unreal.

Getting the opportunity two months ago to play for Australia with the under-21s in an eight nations tournament in Spain was obviously pretty special as well.

It was a week long tournament and we played five or six games. The quality of hockey over there and the different styles of the countries we played was awesome. We finished fourth. We were unlucky to lose the bronze medal match in a shootout, but regardless of where we finished just to play was awesome.

That was the first time I've played for Australia. When I was 16 I got picked in the Australian all-schools team for the Australian under 16s, who were touring South Africa, but I pulled out to go to the under-18s national championships playing for NSW. That was my first selection but Spain was my first time playing.

It's hard to describe what putting on the green and gold for the first time is like. I was just walking around the hotel room with the singlet on, I couldn't stop. I was loving it.

It only really hit me when I was out there at the first game listening to the national anthem. Standing out there, in that short span of time while the anthem's playing, it was pretty special. I reflected on all things I'd done and the work that I'd put in and the people who had played a part. It was just surreal, really.

That was definitely my biggest moment so far. I was a late call in to that trip, one of the boys got injured which was unfortunate. But yeah, it was unreal.

I ended up in Sydney because I was offered a scholarship to the NSW Institute of Sport when I was 17 and I've stayed on since. They offer scholarships in yearly rounds and I have kept getting them, which has been nice.

It was a tough decision to take the scholarship but I decided to move out of home, which was huge. Not a lot of players do that. A lot of them are country-based and only move down once they finish school. But I moved down to live with my aunty and uncle and finished school down here at a school called Model Farm. An awesome place. Awesome year. It was a tough year obviously but everyone was really supportive.

Since then I've started university studying exercise science and moved out with a mate of mine and I'm just going along, playing with Ryde. They're awesome, they're just like a family and always looking after my best interests and being supportive.

Obviously, my main goal at the moment is getting a spot on the national team.

Everyone’s path to playing for Australia is different. The ideal path for me from now would be to get picked for the NSW under-21s again next year. There's also a new league that they've developed this year called Hockey One which is the old Australian Hockey League format. They've made it a bit similar to Big Bash in the cricket and I've been picked in a squad called NSW Pride so ideally I'd make that team and if I don't there's an opportunity to go in a draft type system.

From there, I’d look to gain selection into the national junior squad or the development squad and then eventually make my way into the Kookaburras if possible. But there's a lot of hard work in between there and where I am now.

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