West Coast Eagles premiership forward Jack Darling’s trade to North Melbourne was dripping in irony

Enigmatic. Talented. Polarising. Powerful. Frustrating. Exhilarating. Hero. Whipping Boy. That’s Jack Darling. The West Coast premiership forward is now a North Melbourne player and the trade that sent Darling to Arden Street for pick 67 was dripping in irony. Some fans will be thrilled because they’d been calling for him to move on for years. Some will be shattered because the loved the way he played. Darling has always been the player who divided opinions and this trade is another example of how his career has always created debate. The Eagles no longer believed Darling was part of their best 22 and were happy to accept a fourth round pick for him. North Melbourne see him as a really important part of their forward line. Darling had one more season left on his contract at West Coast has played 298 matches, so could have remained in Perth and become just the second Eagle to hit the coveted 300 game milestone. But that was the only reason to stay. North Melbourne have given him a two-year deal with a trigger for a third season and Darling is confident he can play until the end of 2027. If Darling achieves that, he’ll break through 350 games and that would have clearly taken him past the 333 matches Shannon Hurn played as West Coast’s games record holder. Darling’s stats indicate he is on the decline. He kicked 42 goals in 2021, 34 in 2022, then 26 in 2023 and only 22 last season. But he’s talking about kicking 40 goals in 2025. If Darling hits that target, then pick 67 will be an absolute bargain. The entire trade sums up the way Darling has been perceived throughout a career where he’s been an All-Australian, premiership forward and has kicked more than 500 goals. Despite all that, it always felt like a “but” was just around the corner. Darling kicked six goals in his second WAFL game, less than two months after his 17th birthday and spent all of the 2010 season playing league footy where he polled 10 Sandover Medal votes. Clubs would normally be falling over themselves to get access to a young star like that. But questions were raised about his temperament after getting suspended while on a school camp. When he later suffered a fractured skull after being punched while out with friends, draft doubts emerged. Those doubtss saw Darling slide from an early pick to number 26. He was the fourth tall forward chosen behind Sam Day, Tom Lynch and Lucas Cook (who never played a game). West Coast could’t believe their luck. Number 26 was a bargain. Darling made a mockery of his draft slide in his first year by becoming a key part of a team that rose from the wooden spoon to the preliminary final. He finished fifth in the AFL Rising Star award and looked perfectly at home at the elite level. As a second year player, Darling led West Coast’s goalkicking with 53 majors. It was an outrageously successful start to an AFL career. Setting a high bar as a young player meant it was going to be hard to maintain that standard. The following season, Darling kicked five goals four times - and here’s the but - each time he managed only one the next week. Fans either roared their lungs out or tore their hair out when watching Darling. His grand final performances summed up that relationship. In 2015, the Eagles started terribly and trailed by 31 points at half-time. Darling kicked the opening goal of the third quarter after a strong mark against Ben Stratton followed by a tough set shot from near the boundary line. Filled with hope, fans roared with excitement. But moments later, he dropped a regulation chest mark when inside the corridor and only 35 metres from goal, Hawthorn recovered possession and kicked a goal to put a dagger through West Coast’s hearts. Fans vented. Darling is the man who put West Coast in front during the final quarter of the 2018 qualifying final against Collingwood, followed up with a goal that put them 10 points up with a clutch set shot moments later. But he kicked the ball into the man on the mark with his next possession. He’s the guy who touched the ball just three times in the first half of the 2018 grand final, but dragged in six marks in the third quarter, four of which were contested. Nobody else has taken four contested marks in a grand final since. Garry Lyon described it as one of the best grand final quarters in the history of the game. Yet despite all that, Darling yet fumbled a pass from Luke Shuey while standing next to the goal square with no Magpie within 10 metres and less than 80 seconds remaining. During 2018 and 2019, Darling was among the best key forwards in the game despite being shorter than some of the game’s elite midfielders. He was sitting second in the AFL Coaches Association award after round nine in 2018 after a three week patch where he averaged 19 possessions, six contested marks and four goals per game. It was extraordinary. Then he suffered a serious ankle injury two weeks later and the time on the sidelines cost him All-Australian selection. But a career-best season in 2019, where Darling kicked 59 goals, saw him rewarded with a coveted All-Australian jacket and a new contract that tied him to the Eagles until the end of 2025. West Coast proudly declared he was an Eagle for life. “I grew up supporting the Eagles, so to be here for my entire career is something I’ll look back on proudly,” Darling said at the time. “I always thought I was going to be a one-club player.” But it wasn’t to be. The world changed. COVID happened, West Coast fell down the ladder, Darling missed most of the 2022 pre-season after waiting to get vaccinated and kicked only 26 goals in 2023. Premiership coach Adam Simpson always backed Darling when he had quiet patches. But that faith disappeared when Jarrad Schofield took over and he dropped the key forward for two games. Those missed games prevented Darling from the 300-game milestone as an Eagle. And here’s where the AFL can step in and guarantee one of the ‘buts’ falls in Darling’s favour. When they pull the fixture together, they need to look closely at round two because there’s something strange about the idea of Darling playing his 300th game in a blue and white jumper when it will be just the second time he’ll have run out for the Kangaroos. Yes, he’s a Kangaroo BUT North Melbourne fans have barely even seen Darling play. He’s played just three games in Victoria against North Melbourne. He’s played against the Roos more in Tasmania than at Marvel Stadium. Darling will run through a 300th game banner and be chaired off the ground regardless of where he plays and who his opponent is that day - but it would be fitting if he played that game against West Coast in Perth. Then fans could celebrate his career before and after the match but barrack against him during the day. A polarising moment combined with a moment of celebration - how fitting.