WHEN the Sydney Swans take on Carlton in 2012, Tom Mitchell and Dylan Buckley will have the chance to rekindle an old rivalry.
The Swans claimed Mitchell via the father-son rule with their first-round pick as Trade Week opened with Buckley joining the Blues under the same rule at the cost of the club's final pick in the 2011 NAB AFL Draft.
The pair was on hand at Etihad Stadium on Monday to be presented to the media in their new colours and the good mates caught up for a quick chat when the formalities were out of the way.
Three years ago Mitchell and Buckley lined up against each other in the Grand Final of the Yarra Junior Football League's under-15 competition - Mitchell for Ashburton and Buckley for Fitzroy.
"My team got up and I still hold it over him, even today," Buckley says with a broad grin.
"It is kind of [surreal] to be in this situation though. If you'd asked three years ago, I would have said that it was a long shot, but it's definitely something we've both been aiming for."
Despite the rivalry between the two clubs, the pair have been friends ever since. They've played alongside each other in representative teams and were selected in last year's AIS-AFL Academy squad.
"We went to South Africa, which was a great experience," Mitchell says.
"We saw a lot of stuff we hadn't seen before."
A lot will have to go right for both players to be selected in the senior squads for their respective clubs when they first meet next season with Buckley, in particular, needing a strong pre-season after an ankle injury stalled his development in 2011.
"I hurt it at the start of the year, but they said that it would come good," Buckley explains.
"I played a bit of footy and it kept coming up, so I had to get a little clean out in the end, but I'm fine now and I'll start running in the next few weeks.
"I think Tommy's probably got me covered at this stage, he used to throw me about a bit and I think he still could, but I'll bulk up soon."
Mitchell's Ashburton team may have fallen to Fitzroy in that big game back in 2008, but the club looks set to be a draft winner years later with four players in the mix to get drafted this year and next.
Mitchell played alongside Jack Viney, who has already agreed to join Melbourne via the father-son rule next year, Toby Greene, a likely top-10 draft pick in next month's national draft and tall prospect Tom Curran, who was overlooked by Hawthorn as a father-son recruit but is an excellent chance to get picked up on his own merits.
"It's great that all those boys have progressed on and hopefully they'll have great careers," Mitchell says.
"They were gun players in their junior days and not much has changed.
"Jack is another father-son, so he knows what's happening with him, but the other boys are in the draft. I'm sure they'll be happy just to have an opportunity and they'll make the most of it if they do."
