DARCY’S RESILIENCE SHINES THROUGH
IF resilience is an attribute AFL recruiters are looking for in a prospective draftee, there is a fair chance Darcy Chirgwin’s name will be mentioned regularly in the coming days.
Having accepted a scholarship as a 16-year-old, Chirgwin packed his bags to head to Melbourne Grammar and had to adapt to life in a boarding house quickly.
With no family or friends around for support, he found his feet and began to flourish at school and on the football field.
But a training incident at the Sandringham Dragons in January this year rocked his world.
Chirgwin was caught between two teammates in a tackle that left him with a broken leg — hardly the type of preparation a young man in his draft year would have been contemplating.
As ever, though, he fought back and has done enough to catch the eye of several clubs in the market for a big-bodied midfielder. He believes that resilience will hold him in good stead should his name be read out at this week’s draft, which starts on Wednesday night.
“I fractured my fib twice and dislocated my ankle,” Chirgwin said. “I did a good job of it and it put me out for probably five-and-half months. Because I did it in January I probably only ended up missing three months of football, which wasn’t too bad all things considered.
“But you know going into an AFL program that you are probably not going to get through your career injuryfree so you have to be able to show you are resilient and can get back from injury.
“I think I did that and played some reasonable footy at the end of the year, which was basically off no pre-season, it was mostly leg rehab … but you need to show you can get through those injuries.
“(With the move to Melbourne) it is a bit of an advantage because you have already moved away from home.
“Obviously I haven’t been living at home for the past two years so I have become used to not being around and it probably makes that transition a bit easier if I do have to move interstate.”
Chirgwin’s return game for Sandringham following the broken leg left those at the ground in no doubt as to his potential.
He finished with 32 touches (20 contested), 11 clearances and laid 16 tackles, which is made more remarkable given his lack of conditioning.
But while his inside work is his clear strength, the former St Joseph’s College student and St Mary’s junior knows it is work outside the contest that needs some finetuning.
“I have had a few interviews at the boarding house because I couldn’t get home (to Geelong) to do them,” Chirgwin said.
“They give you some feedback and pump your tires up and tell you what you are doing well but they also tell you some things to work on. I know I have things to work on and getting into a full-time professional system will fasttrack that.
“So hopefully that happens but that is probably the case for most kids, because it becomes a full-time job so you can put a lot more time in.”
In the meantime, with exams out of the way and time to kill now that he is back in Geelong, Chirgwin has been participating in Movember with Falcons captain and Hemisphere management stablemate Jesse Clark, and has been keen to make up for lost time with mates he says will always be a priority.
“It is a pretty quick turnaround from the draft if you do get picked up. You have to be at the club by at least Monday morning so you have to go in reasonable shape,” he said.
“The guys who were at the national combine were given a program by the AFL so we just follow that and it has all the running and gym sessions and extras to do, so that prepares us if we do go to an AFL club next week.
“I have been doing a heap of training and I just got back from Noosa with family which was good to get away.
“But doing VCE is a massive commitment so since getting back I have been catching up with my mates which I have prioritised because I didn’t really see them all that often when I was at boarding school.”