He started his SANFL career with North Adelaide in 1985 and was a key player in the club’s 1987 premiership win over Glenelg. He ignored offers from Melbourne and Brisbane through the ‘80s but after winning North’s best and fairest in 1990 he joined Hawthorn instead of the new Adelaide Football Club.
Darren played 109 games for the Hawks, including the 1991 premiership, twice earned All Australian selection and won the club’s best and fairest in 1995, the same season he finished runner-up in the Brownlow Medal.
A complicated trade deal then brought him back to Adelaide to reunite with Andrew and it proved a recruiting coup. He was an All-Australian in his first year with the Crows and then twice a grand final matchwinner for Adelaide. Jarman booted five goals in the last quarter of the 1997 grand final (for a total of six) after being moved to full forward and then kicked five goals in the 1998 win over North Melbourne.
Darren retired at the end of the 2001 season after a career including 144 games for North, 109 for Hawthorn and 121 at the Crows. He was an assistant coach at Adelaide from 2002-04. In 2007 he became the first Adelaide player to be inducted into the Australian Football Hall of Fame. He was awarded life membership of the Adelaide Football Club in 2008.
Darren Jarman at the Crows
Guernsey number: 3.
Crows debut: Round 1 v Sydney, 1996.
AFC games: 121. AFC goals: 264.
Recruited from: Hawthorn.
Trade from Hawthorn, 1995.
DOB: January 28, 1967
He said: “Some guys go around for years and not play in finals. I was very, very lucky.”
Random info:
Darren started his AFL career in Adelaide’s first ever game. But he was wearing the Hawthorn guernsey and opposed to brother Andrew.
He polled Brownlow Medal votes in his second and third AFL games.
His best goal return in his AFL career was nine, kicked for the Crows in a losing game against Melbourne in 1999.
Crows career:
Year | Games |
1996 | 19 |
1997 | 24 |
1998 | 23 |
1999 | 21 |
2000 | 14 |
2001 | 20 |
