Arryn Siposs signed to play bush footy in 2018 but a college football scholarship led him to the NFL Super Bowl

Passes from 45 metres to 50 metres met his chest every time.

He didn’t have to move.

His brother Arryn was kicking the ball to him.

Today Tom Siposs, a 25-year-old carpenter from Endeavour Hills, flies to Arizona as Arryn prepares to play for Philadelphia in Monday’s Super Bowl against Kansas City.

He says he can still hardly believe his 30-year-old brother with the superboot has made the transition from an AFL player with St Kilda to an NFL punter with the Eagles.

“Five years ago I didn’t think we would be seeing this at all, if I’m honest,’’ Tom says.

“Because it’s such a big thing to be able to do.

“But he’s worked very hard in everything he’s done and it’s good to see him getting the rewards for it. Where he is today, it’s crazy. It’s sort of heroic in a way, because the perseverance he showed is unbelievable.’’

Tom cannot recall exactly when Arryn told him he would take a punt on punting.

But he was not surprised when he linked with the Prokick Australia program headed by former AFL player Nathan Chapman.

He says his brother spoke about it after finishing up with the Saints at the end of the 2015 season.

“It sort of just came up. He said, ‘Yeah, I’m looking into this’. He’s always been interested in the NFL and he thought he could get there. Whatever he puts his mind to, he knows he can do it.’’

The Siposs family is from the outer south-east of Melbourne, and Arryn played junior football with Beaconsfield and for junior representative teams.

As an Under 16 he booted 99 goals and played in a premiership team. And in 2010 he was added to the Dandenong Stingrays’ squad in his top-age year.

During the season, Rays coach Graeme Yeats declared Siposs an “absolutely elite kick of the footy’’.

After it, St Kilda took him at No.75 in the national draft.

“Really balanced, really smooth … he could hit a dime from 55m away,’’ Yeats recalls.

“It was like seeing a top golfer swing the golf club. You don’t have to kick the cover off it to kick it the furthest. He always timed it.’’

Siposs played 28 games with the Saints from 2011-2015, a five-season stop in which he was frustrated by injuries.

He then joined Williamstown in the VFL in the hope of getting a second AFL listing.

It never came.

Early in November, 2017, country club Wonthaggi trumpeted Siposs as a signing for 2018.

Two weeks later Prokick Australia announced Siposs had been offered a scholarship to Auburn University.

Even before the Saints drafted him, Prokick had identified his long kicking and made contact.

Hawthorn AFL head of development Andy Collins coached Siposs at Williamstown and says the-then 23-year-old started working towards a shot at punting almost as soon as he was delisted by St Kilda.

“During his two years with us he was also doing the Prokick program,’’ Collins says.

“It was a two-year development that he did under Nathan Chapman.

“It never really compromised his footy or his footy training. He was a really high performer for us.’’

Collins says he’ll always remember Siposs booting a crucial goal for Willy in 2017.

“He kicked this booming torpedo from easily inside the square at Williamstown to put us a couple of goals ahead,’’ he says. “Huge.’’

He says Siposs’s kicking stemmed from a “combination of what he does well: he’s a really nice size, he’s got powerful, long levers, he’s got incredible balance, great timing of the ball drop’’.

“Biomechanists would call it a summation of forces,’’ Collins says.

He has fingers and toes crossed that Siposs, having declared himself available after recovering from injury, will be picked by the Eagles and take his place in the Super Bowl.

Sam Dunell played with Siposs at St Kilda and Williamstown, and was best man at his wedding three years ago.

He says Siposs’ journey to the Super Bowl has been remarkable, taking in the scholarship to Auburn, his decision to nominate for the NFL draft after two years at college instead of three, a stint at Detroit as an undrafted free agent and then the move to the Eagles, for whom he first played in 2021.

Siposs was at university studying to be a teacher when he set out for the US.

“It’s an amazing story really … from finishing in the AFL at the end of 2015 and eight years later he’s now starting punter in an NFL Super Bowl,’’ Dunell says.

He says Siposs’s wife, Rachael, has supported him staunchly since they met at Sandringham Football Club.

Dunell says Siposs is “hands down the biggest kick and the most pure kick’’ he has seen in football.

He remembers a “huge hoof’’ on a windy day at Williamstown: “He put it up there and away it went … amazing kick. Would have gone 80m I reckon.’’

Sippos had also been a promising cricketer. He was part of the Ormond squad that won the RM Hatch Shield in 2007 and had a stint with Frankston-Peninsula in the lower grades of Victorian Premier Cricket.

He also made a century for his school, Hallam Secondary College.

Tom Siposs plays local football for Keysborough, where he is regarded as one of the best kicks at the club.

Three years ago he did a trial with Prokick Australia’s Nathan Chapman as a punter.

But he says he lacked the ambition of his brother.

“The level of commitment that Arryn has compared to me is just far beyond,’’ he says. “Look where it’s taken him.’’