AFL 2026: ‘Repay the faith’: How Hawthorn Hawks star Dylan Moore has gone from the jailhouse to role model
Updated ,first published
From jailhouse to role model, that’s the tale of redemption Hawthorn hard nut Dylan Moore has experienced over the past year. And, as the Hawks prepare for Saturday night’s preliminary final against the Brisbane Lions, teammates say there is no one they would rather go into battle with than the robust forward.
A season that is now just one step away from a grand final could have been so different for Moore had he and the Hawks not handled his off-season indiscretion in the mature manner they did – Moore and teammate Connor Macdonald having spent a night in jail in Phoenix, Arizona, after trespassing and climbing onto a scissor lift suspended 2.5 metres in the air while on a boozy end-of-season trip.
They were arrested by Scottsdale police, the pair charged with third-degree criminal trespass for their antics. The obligatory mugshot followed, but, in July, Moore’s case was officially dismissed.
Reflecting on that ill-fated trip this week, Moore, 27, said it had been a humbling experience.
“I think just walking in every day to the football club, I wanted to put my best foot forward, be the best clubman, best teammate I could be, and the club showed me so much love and care and respect, and I couldn’t thank them enough,” Moore, contracted until the end of 2030, said.
“I felt like I’ve got to play good football, in a way, to repay the faith and the love they showed me, and feel like if I can play my role every week, then it shows that I can be a good clubman and a good teammate, even when stuff around you happens, and yeah, I feel very thankful to be at the best club possible.”
Moore was also arrested for possessing drug paraphernalia after he was searched and a plastic bag with a crystalline substance was found, but that charge was quickly dropped.
He said the hardest part of the experience was informing his partner and family.
“Yeah, I think it’s more tough for the people around me … like, my partner, my family, they’re the ones getting all the questions. I can just come into the club every day and kind of not focus on that, whereas they go to work and get asked, ‘Oh, what’s going on?’” Moore explained.
“Whereas here, I felt very safe, valued, and it was all out [there]. So, it was fine here. It was more of the people around me, and yeah, it was tough on them. And I felt like that’s why it was tough on me … [because of] how hard it was for the people around me.”
It wasn’t easy explaining his actions to coach Sam Mitchell, either.
“Telling my parents, my partner, the club, Sam – I just felt like I let a lot of people down and, yeah, I’m just so lucky that they showed so much love and care for me the following months and down,” he said.
While the Hawks handled the case with care, Moore was stripped of the vice captaincy. He was ordered by the Scottsdale city attorney to pay a $300 diversion fee, complete an alcohol screening and take 16 hours of alcohol education.
Hawks co-captain Jai Newcombe said Moore’s attitude and professionalism had since been exemplary.
“Dylan’s been the same Dylan that I’ve that I’ve always known, and yeah, obviously, had the slip up in the off-season, pre-season, but, you know, he’s done a lot away from the game to earn the respect that you think he needed to back,” Newcombe said.
“I mean, to us, it didn’t take much from me on the inside for him to gain that trust back. He’s been a role model here for a long time, especially in training standards and what we expect. He is, by far, one of the best trainers that we’ve got here. And now, with the forward line and the small forward line that we do have, you know, it’s been really important that he has that presence to perform, and to teach them [teammates] as well at the same time.”
Moore has taken on a teaching gig of his own this year – joining teammates Will Day, Massimo D’Ambrosio and Jack Scrimshaw, in coaching the under-15 boys’ Eastern Football Netball League representative side for 10 weeks.
It’s been a learning experience, but one he has relished, allowing him to impart the wisdom he has garnered from nine seasons in the big league.
Moore’s game is based on work ethic and commitment, a career-defining epiphany he had with Craig McRae, when the Collingwood coach was an assistant with the Hawks, still in front of mind.
Having felt he had wasted his first three AFL seasons when he managed only 10 senior games, overly focusing on his so-called weaknesses, McRae told Moore he should spend more time enhancing the skills which had seen the former Eastern Ranges talent taken with the 67th pick of the 2017 national draft.
“I think I had a good game in 2020 [at the] end of the year against Gold Coast, but they didn’t really show up that day, so I got a bit lucky. But, that was the first moment I was like, ‘Oh, I can impact a game’,” Moore, also an avid sports card collector with Day, said.
“And then Craig McRae came to the club as our forward-line coach, and he sat down with me and said, ‘Why did you get drafted?’ So I [said], ‘Yeah, like hard work, footy IQ’, and he goes, ’All right, let’s focus on that this pre-season, see how you go, and then that year [2021] I played 20 games, [and] felt more comfortable that I was in the best 23.
“I think continuity is so important in football, and the more you play, the more you can kind of relax before a game and be like, ‘All right, I’m good enough. I just need to do this, this week’. I feel like he helped me just create a role in the side and show my strengths.”
Those strengths have helped Moore negotiate a trying 2026, the ultimate redemption tale almost within reach for him and the Hawks.
Jon Pierik is a sports journalist at The Age. He covers AFL and has won awards for his cricket and basketball writing.Connect via X or email.
