‘Repay the faith’: How Dylan Moore has gone from the jailhouse to becoming a role model

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.”

“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.