Show me your friends, I'll show you your future. If the old adage rings true, Talatau Amone and...
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Show me your friends, I'll show you your future. It's an old adage, and one that rings true more often than not.
If it is the case, Talatau Amone and Tyrell Sloan have had very bright futures for some time now - have done since Sloan took up residence in the Amone household as a youngster.
It's where the first conversations about playing alongside each other at NRL level took place, and continued with some regularity in the years that followed.
"We spoke a lot about it coming through," Sloan recalls.
"That's all we wanted to do. I lived with Junior (Amone) for a bit there so we were together each and every day. We've always spoken about it since then.
"He was at Wests and I was at Dapto so, while we did play a bit together in under 13's and 14's, it was in Harold Matthews when we really started playing a lot of footy together.
"When we went through into SG Ball we started taking it a lot more seriously and thought we could actually make this together."
The belief was not without foundation given the success they enjoyed with the Steelers as 17-year-olds in 2019.
Simply put, that SG Ball side was a good'n.
Amone and Sloan featured alongside Jayden Sullivan and Mat and Max Feagai (all a year older) in a premiership-winning team many consider a once-in-a-generation stockpile of talent.
Aaron Schoupp was there too, though he subsequently slipped the Dragons net and ended up at the Bulldogs with whom he played 13 NRL games last season.
They'd always spoken about it but, according to Amone, it's where the dream ended. It was now an opportunity, and one within reach.
"There was always talk about us making it all the way but it's something everyone says when you're young," Amone said.
"You do freakish stuff in a game and say 'oh, you'll be there one day' and 'imagine doing this in the NRL' without really believing it.
"When we started winning games in SG Ball we'd say 'it'd be crazy if we could start doing this in the top grade'. It was probably after winning that GF that the [genuine] belief came.
"I think that gave birth to that belief."
From early conversations, the drive became unspoken, an understanding, communicated with the same nods and winks they shared on the rise through the Steelers ranks.
It was no different when they got their first crack at some diluted NRL action ahead of last season, featuring alongside Sullivan in the Dragons first trial outing against Cronulla.
It was little more than a barrier trial for players first-up off a spell, youngsters with a smattering seasoned stars who'd played a stipulated 12 games or less in the COVID-disrupted 2020 campaign.
"When Junior, Sully and I got to play that trial at Cronulla there, I just remember running out and looking at Junz," Sloan recalls.
"It was a trial match but we took it really seriously as you should. I remember it so clearly, him just nodding his head at me. There was a little message there 'let's do our thing' and I thought 'yeah, this is our time'."
For Amone it was a continuation of a long-practiced ritual.
"Before every game with those boys we always have that look at each other," Amone said.
"In the positions we're in, they're key positions on the field. If we go good, the team goes good. If we go bad, the team goes bad. It's on us.
"Before every game we look at each other and we know we'll hold it down for each other, we know we'll put our bodies on the line for each other.
"It's just a nod and that's when we know it's game on.
"That trial was the first time we were playing against men and it felt like it was the first step up into the NRL. We walked out there with each other and said 'it's time. We've been waiting for this opportunity, here it is'.
"We just gave each other that look and it was on from there."
For fans, the trio's emergence hits a number of sweet spots. For one, it comes hot on the heels of Penrith's return to the NRL summit.
The Panthers rise to last year's flag was built around the likes of Nathan Cleary, Jarome Luai, Brian To'o, Stephen Crichton and Matt Burton.
It was a crop of youngsters that collected junior rep trophies like Winx collected Group 1's before adding the ultimate prize to the list last season.
The Panthers success, and the overdue demise of the NYC competition at the end of 2017, have put a renewed focus on genuine junior development.
There's been no shortage of those
willing to draw comparisons between those Panthers and the Steelers class of 2019.
For a fanbase starved of recent success, it's certainly cause for optimism.
That can bring its own kind of pressure. There's a few on the Dragons current roster that could speak to that in the likes of Moses Mbye, Moses Suli and Tautau Moga who've have all ridden that roller coaster.
For an absolute authority on it, you could do worse than Dragons premiership-winner Jamie Soward. No player has ever come through the ranks more highly-touted.
He famously played the 'Darren Lockyer role' in an opposed session against the Phil Gould-coached NSW during the 2004 Origin series, stunning Blues players with his mimicry of the future Immortal.
When he booted home two field goals for the Roosters to complete an undefeated season in that year's Jersey Flegg grand final, a star was truly born - all before even featuring in the NRL.
Spoiled by success, Roosters fans felt they had a successor to the retiring Brad Fittler. The reality was rougher, Soward's career only fully blossoming following a mid-season switch to the Dragons in 2007.
Read more: Woods vows to deliver as Grifin names squad for season-opener
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