Front row, Constables Stephen Booth, Mikayla Weston, Thomas Comer, William Pye, Stuart Hunt (back row) Matthew Murphy, Mitchell Cluff and Joel Murphy on their first day of work as Police officers, at Springwood Police station on August 27.
Blue Mountains brothers Joel and Matthew Murphy after their graduation ceremony at the NSW Police Academy in Goulburn on Friday.
Blue Mountains Police was boosted on Monday when eight excited young recruits - fresh from graduating at the Police Academy in Goulburn - turned up at Springwood Police Station for their first day in the job.
Among them were brothers Joel and Matthew Murphy who grew up in the Blue Mountains and look remarkably similar, despite not being identical twins.
Joel, 24 and Matthew, 22 often discussed as teenagers what they would like to do when they left school.
"We both thought it would be great to join the Police, but it also seemed like a pipe dream," Matthew said.
Instead they pursued apprenticeships after leaving school - Joel in horticulture and Matthew in plumbing - but in a strange twist they decided in late 2010 they wanted a career change and it had to be the Police Force.
Joel and Matthew were able to choose study pathways that suited their lives at the time.
Joel, who was married with a young child and another baby on the way, applied to study via distance education while Matthew, with no mortgage or family commitments, wanted to study full-time at the Academy.
Regardless of how they began the course, both ended up in Goulburn for the final 16 weeks to complete a compulsory on-site practical training block.
"We actually lived at different ends of the campus and were in different tutorials, so we didn’t see much of each other during the day," Joel said.
But the brothers describe themselves as being like "Siamese twins" in the evenings.
"We studied and ate dinner together every night," Matthew said.
"It was good to have a bit of brotherly competition, physically and academically."
Joel and Matthew agree it was a great support to be at the academy at the same time.
And in a development that will no doubt make their parents very happy, the brothers were allocated to start their career in their home territory at Blue Mountains Local Area Command.
They began their first day with an orientation and photo session at Springwood Police station with their fellow recruits, Constables Stephen Booth, Mikayla Weston, Thomas Comer, William Pye, Stuart Hunt and Mitchell Cluff.