There have been a number of unique parallels throughout the careers of Taylor Duryea and Matthew Suckling.
The duo both hail from country New South Wales, have both done their best work off half-back and both possess a neat and powerful left foot.
Both Duryea and Suckling also won two premierships with Hawthorn, one each acting as the sub in 2014 and 2015 respectively as part of the Hawks’ remarkable three-peat.
Before that, Duryea even stepped into Suckling’s role early in 2013 after a knee injury struck down the latter.
It doesn’t end there. After successful stints in brown and gold, both players then moved on to the Western Bulldogs.
“We’ve had a similar trajectory in our careers. We’re both from New South Wales, we’re both left footed and we bonded pretty early,” Suckling told SEN.com.au.
“We’re still really close mates. When I did my knee in 2013, he debuted in Round 3 and went from there.
“We sit back now and look at it and we’ve both been sub in a Grand Final, we’ve both played in two premierships and both were at the Dogs.”
Suckling made his way to the Dogs in 2016, but after a quality debut season in the red, white and blue, disaster struck.
Just as he experienced with losing the 2012 Grand Final to Sydney and missing the 2013 flag through injury, Suckling missed out again.
He was unable to enjoy the drought-breaking Dogs premiership of 2016 (over the Swans) due to achilles issues which struck just weeks out.
Two years later and Duryea followed that pathway to The Kennel with the pair reuniting for a further two seasons.
Fast forward to today and Suckling is almost a year retired while Duryea is in Luke Beveridge’s starting 22 for the Grand Final againat Melbourne on Saturday.
Having missed out on success with the Dogs, Suckling is hoping there is a snap in the trend and change in course of his and Duryea’s comparable careers.
“Hopefully the Dogs can win it this year because I hurt my achilles when the Dogs won it 2016,” Suckling added.
“Hopefully he can change that course.”