Top Tasmanian AFL Draft prospect Avery Thomas was one of the most dominant athletes in the physical testing at the National Combine on Sunday.
Thomas finished in the top 10 for the 20-metre sprint, AFL agility test, running vertical jump and standing vertical jump, proving his rare blend of size and athleticism to perfectly footnote a season of significant growth.
The Launceston local, who played senior footy in the now-defunct Tasmanian Premier League aged 15, impressed despite battling significant illness last week, which caused him to lose three kilograms.
A grounding in high-level athletics assisted him in his testing and gives him a significant point of difference on-field, having only fully committed to footy ahead of the 2025 pre-season.
The intercept defender was the only player from the Apple Isle invited to the National Combine, with fellow Tasmanians Lucas Wootton and Jack Miller testing at the State Combine.
It follows a 2024 season where Mid-Season Draft pickup Geordie Payne was the only Tasmanian selected and comes two years ahead of Tasmania's slated entrance into the AFL.
“Whichever team is to draft me, that's where my head and 100% of my effort's going to be put,” Thomas said when asked if there would be a lure to return to a Tasmanian AFL side.
“So the Tassie team, that's all off in the distance - whoever's to draft me will have my commitment and, I reckon by that time, I probably won't want to come back to Tassie if I'm being honest.
“I want to just get away from home and get out and about.”
The 2025 campaign was punctuated by separate concussions and a broken nose for Thomas, but in between he was able to play strong footy, catching the eye with his creativity out of the backline, marking and ability to lockdown.
After impressing early in the year by nullifying Sydney Academy talent Max King, an intercepting spree against the Dandenong Stingrays midway through the year got Thomas elevated to the Allies squad for the last three games of the U18s National Championships.
Averaging 10 disposals and four marks, he showed glimpses of his strong upside, which has him positioned as a second-round prospect at the draft in seven weeks.
“I feel like being that hybrid so I can play tall or small, intercept and take the game on or you can put me as a one-on-one defender,” Thomas said of the type of backman he could become.
“My mindset when I was against (Max King) was that ‘yeah I can beat this guy' and that's my mindset going into every game when I have a direct matchup.”
“I felt confident within myself at the (U18s National Championships) that I could compete against the best in the country.
“I feel like I was definitely able to beat opponents and show off what I can, really can do and I feel like I was able to do that across the three games and obviously that got me noticed.”
Having travelled around Australia for athletics, particularly decathlon, in recent years, Thomas was backed to pursue footy in 2025 after five games for the Devils last year.
He played just one game for Tasmania at the U16s National Championships before being dropped, highlighting how his attention was fragmented between the sports.
“AFL was a dream, and had always been the dream," Thomas recalled.
“I came into this year knowing I was going to have to pick one or the other and luckily my athletics coach asked ‘do you want to do football?' and backed me in all the way.
“She saw that I wanted to do it really badly so she backed me in which made the decision easier and that helped me a lot to get me to where I am now.
“It meant I could focus fully on footy in pre-season and improve my kicking and marking and building up my tank without worrying about athletics.”
