Darcy Wilson is incredibly quick to slip back to the well-worn footy cliché of “credit to the boys” when asked about his own blistering outing over Geelong on the Saturday night stage. 

True as it may be that St Kilda’s wild swing which overturned a 33-point half-time margin and yielded a 13-goal second half was built off a cohesive team-wide performance, it shouldn’t diminish the impact the young Saint had himself in his side’s emphatic second half from the clouds.

Wilson finished the night with a career-best 25 disposals and two goals (almost three had the Sherrin not brushed the post following a sizzling, opposite-foot snap) to instigate his side’s pulsating third quarter, but true to form it was his running numbers which leapt off the page.

The 19-year-old from Wangaratta covered off a game-high 15.5km at Marvel Stadium to complete his full siren-to-siren performance, also squeezing in 33 individual sprint efforts which were unsurpassed by anyone on the ground.

“It was pretty cool. I got on the end of a few lucky ones, but it was a good team effort,” Wilson told saints.com.au post-game.

“That one that hit the post I thought was going through! The other two… Stocker gave it to me and I fired off at the goals and it went through.

“But honestly, it’s got to go back to the boys. I wouldn’t be kicking those goals if it wasn’t for the hard work of Stock and the mids, so definitely credit to them.”

With one game against Carlton left to play and Wilson a certainty to feature that game, his debut season is one that will go down in the club’s history books once he officially takes the field next Sunday afternoon.

Wilson will achieve the rare feat of playing in every match in his debut season, following on from Mattaes Phillipou who did the same last year and Callum Wilkie in 2019. Prior to Wilkie, Stephen Sziller was the last to notch up such an achievement all the way back in 1995.

While coming into an AFL environment as a teenager can be daunting, Wilson backed in his work ethic to put himself in selection considerations early in his career, ensuring that output never wavered across the course of the year.

“I suppose coming in (I knew) the Saints were a bit of a running side and I kind of backed my ability to do that,” Wilson said.

“We’ve got some really good coaches, so if I had my ears open to them and learned from them I thought I’d be a chance, but it’s back to hard work really. I’m pinching myself sometimes when I’m working with Ross and the others.

“I’ve been a bit lucky having a bit of an athletics background… 800 metre runner and a bit of hurdles, so that’s carried into my footy. The modern game’s a bit more of a running game and that’s definitely helped, so I just go to work in pre-season, I run hard and it pays off towards the back-end of the year.”

St Kilda’s victory was witnessed by 31,945 attendees at Marvel Stadium in what was the club’s final home game of the year; the red, white and black faithful roaring to life as their side hit their straps after half-time.

It comes as the club surpassed its all-time membership record for the fifth consecutive year earlier this week, registering 60,332 members. 

“It (the win) was huge for the boys. Everyone was celebrating pretty hard and the crowd was getting around us which was awesome,” Wilson said.

“That’s why you watch footy (these) types of games. We’ve been up and down throughout the year, but it’s awesome to finally get on the end of a close one against a really good side.

“Packed house, home crowd, it’s unbelievable.”