Luke Darcy started his career with South Adelaide before his recruitment by the Bulldogs in 1993. Debuting in 1994, Darcy became known as one of the Bulldogs' most successful ruckmen/forwards. In 2001 he took out the Bulldogs' Best and Fairest award, the Charles Sutton Medal, and continued to play well in the following seasons. in 2002 Darcy and the Brisbane Lions's Michael Voss were the first players to be awarded the Leigh Matthews Trophy as the AFL Players Association's Most Valuable Player1. In 2004 he was the Western Bulldogs's leading goalkicker. In a 2005 match against Geelong, Darcy suffered a season-ending knee injury when he twisted it, depriving the Bulldogs of a quality tall-forward option, something they missed during the year. On 20 December 2005 during the final pre-season training session before the Christmas holidays, Darcy re-injured the ACL during a fall which dislocated his knee, which meant that he would miss the entire 2006 season. The Bulldogs finished the season in eighth place, the first time the club had made the finals in six years. He had been part of a Bulldogs casualty list that included four ACL injuries during the season. During his time on the sidelines, he provided special comments for Network Ten's AFL coverage, and continued to do so after his playing retirement which he announced on 2 August 2007, the end of the 2007 AFL season. Darcy was officially added to Network Ten's AFL Commentary Team in 2007 and remained an Expert Commentator right up until the end of the 2011 AFL season, when the network lost broadcasting rights.. From the 2012 AFL season onwards, Darcy was part of the Seven Network's commentating team for Saturday matches.
Darcy also joined radio station Triple M in Melbourne to provide match commentary for its Australian rules football coverage on Friday nights with James Brayshaw, Garry Lyon, Jason Dunstall, Mark Howard and Ash Chua. and co-hosts Triple M Melbourne's The Hot Breakfast with fellow AFL personality Eddie McGuire and comedian Wil Anderson.
Seven Network
Following the 2011 season, Network Ten lost the rights to broadcast Australian rules football matches. Luke joined the Seven Network who have the sole free to air broadcasting rights from 2012-2016. He is a member of the Saturday Night commentary team with James Brayshaw, Cameron Ling and Matthew Richardson while maintaining his work at Triple M. In 2014, Darcy became the new host of Seven's AFL chat show Talking Footy. Darcy has also been a fill in sport presenter on Seven News Melbourne and has served as a tennis commentator for Seven, covering the 2014 Brisbane International. In February 2019, Darcy was announced as co-host of the Seven Network's lifestyle program, House of Wellness alongside Jo Stanley, Rachael Finch and Luke Hines.
Note
1The AFL MVP award dates back to 1982, when the league was still the Victorian Football League, but the Leigh Matthews Trophy was only created in 2002. All prior VFL/AFL MVPs were retrospectively given the Leigh Matthews Trophy in 2005.
