Xavier Clarke (born 28 September 1983) is a former

Australian rules football Australian football, also called Australian rules football or Aussie rules, or more simply football or footy, is a contact sport played between two teams of 18 players on an oval field, often a modified cricket ground. Points are scored by k ...

player who played for St Kilda and

Brisbane Lions The Brisbane Lions is a professional Australian rules football club based in Brisbane, Queensland, that plays in the Australian Football League (AFL). The club was formed in late 1996 via a merger of the Melbourne-based 1883 foundation VFL c ...

in the

Australian Football League The Australian Football League (AFL) is the only fully professional competition of Australian rules football. Through the AFL Commission, the AFL also serves as the sport's governing body and is responsible for controlling the laws of the gam ...

(AFL).

Early life

Clarke has

Indigenous Australian Indigenous Australians or Australian First Nations are people with familial heritage from, and membership in, the ethnic groups that lived in Australia before British colonisation. They consist of two distinct groups: the Aboriginal peoples ...

heritage and his ancestry can be traced to the

Gambalang The Gambalang are an indigenous Australian people of the Northern Territory. Language Though many speakers now use Bininj Kunwok dialect in their daily lives, their ancestral language Gambalang language, Gambalang belongs to the Gunwinggic branc ...

people of the Daly River region of the

Northern Territory The Northern Territory (commonly abbreviated as NT; formally the Northern Territory of Australia) is an states and territories of Australia, Australian territory in the central and central northern regions of Australia. The Northern Territory ...

. Originally from Darwin-based St Mary's Football Club in the

Northern Territory Football League The Northern Territory Football League (NTFL) is an Australian rules football semi-professional league operating in Darwin in the Northern Territory. The league is one of few (and the highest level) Australian Rules competitions played during ...

(NTFL), Clarke was a leading junior player and was tipped to be a first round choice at the

2001 AFL Draft The 2001 AFL draft consisted of a state draft, a body draft, a pre-season draft and a trade period. The AFL draft is the annual draft of players by Australian rules football teams that participate in the main competition of that sport, the Aust ...

Playing career

Clarke was selected by St Kilda with their first round choice, the fifth overall, in the 2001 AFL Draft was presented with the number 20

guernsey Guernsey (; Guernésiais: ''Guernési''; french: Guernesey) is an island in the English Channel off the coast of Normandy that is part of the Bailiwick of Guernsey, a British Crown Dependency. It is the second largest of the Channel Islands ...

and made his senior AFL debut in the

2002 AFL season The 2002 AFL season was the 106th season of the Australian Football League (AFL), the highest level senior Australian rules football competition in Australia, which was known as the Victorian Football League until 1989. The season featured sixt ...

, where he was nominated as an

AFL Rising Star The AFL Rising Star is an Australian rules football award presented annually to the player adjudged the best young player in the Australian Football League (AFL) for the year. It was first presented in the 1993 season, and was won by Nathan Buc ...

. Clarke's brother

Raphael Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino, better known as Raphael (; or ; March 28 or April 6, 1483April 6, 1520), was an Italian painter and architect of the High Renaissance. List of works by Raphael, His work is admired for its clarity of form, ease of ...

was also drafted by St Kilda, as Clarke played 57 games during his first three seasons, taking over the number 3 guernsey from former St Kilda captain

Nathan Burke Nathan Burke (born 6 February 1970) is a former Australian rules footballer and current coach of the team in the AFL Women's competition (AFLW). A tough rover he is considered the most courageous footballers to play for the St Kilda Footb ...

when Burke retired at the end of the

2003 AFL season The 2003 AFL season was the 107th season of the Australian Football League (AFL), the highest level senior Australian rules football competition in Australia, which was known as the Victorian Football League until 1989. The season featured six ...

. In

2005 File:2005 Events Collage V2.png, From top left, clockwise: Hurricane Katrina in the Gulf of Mexico; the Funeral of Pope John Paul II is held in Vatican City; "Me at the zoo", the first video ever to be uploaded to YouTube; Eris was discovered in ...

Clarke he struggled in form and his season ended early when he injured his

hamstring In human anatomy, a hamstring () is any one of the three posterior thigh muscles in between the hip and the knee (from medial to lateral: semimembranosus, semitendinosus and biceps femoris). The hamstrings are susceptible to injury. In quadrupeds, ...

in Round 17 against Collingwood. Clarke continued to struggle with injuries for the rest of his AFL career and following the

2009 AFL season The 2009 AFL season was the 113th season of the Australian Football League (AFL), the highest level senior Australian rules football competition in Australia, which was known as the Victorian Football League until 1989. The season featured six ...

a deal was struck between St Kilda and Brisbane in which Clarke transferred to Brisbane in exchange for draft pick number 60 in the 2009 AFL Draft. Clarke played his only game for Brisbane in the Round 18,

2010 File:2010 Events Collage New.png, From top left, clockwise: The 2010 Chile earthquake was one of the strongest recorded in history; The Eruption of Eyjafjallajökull in Iceland disrupts air travel in Europe; A scene from the opening ceremony of ...

loss to

Melbourne Football Club The Melbourne Football Club, nicknamed the Demons, is a professional Australian rules football club that competes in the Australian Football League (AFL), the sport's elite competition. It is based in Melbourne, Victoria (Australia), Victoria, ...

at Brisbane's home ground,

the Gabba The Brisbane Cricket Ground, commonly known as the Gabba, is a major sports stadium in Brisbane, the capital of Queensland, Australia. The nickname Gabba derives from the suburb of Woolloongabba, in which it is located. Over the years, the Gab ...

. Clarke suffered a recurrence of his hamstring injury in the first half, and while he was originally ruled out for a week, Clarke did not play again. In

2011 File:2011 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: a protester partaking in Occupy Wall Street heralds the beginning of the Occupy movement; protests against Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi, who was killed that October; a young man celebrate ...

, Clarke almost completed a full preseason when he ruptured his anterior cruciate ligament in his right knee and, although offered a rookie list position by Brisbane, retired from football at the end of the 2011 season.

Coaching career

Clarke became head coach of the NT Thunder in the NEAFL in 2014. He won the league's Coach of the Year award that season before taking them to a premiership in 2015. In 2017 he joined as a VFL assistant coach. In 2020 he will serve as head coach of the club's VFL side.

Honours and achievements

* NEAFL Premiership Coach: 2015 * NEAFL Coach of the Year: 2014 * NT Sports Awards Coach of the Year: 2016

Other work

Clarke has also worked with the AFL and the

AFL Players Association The AFL Players Association (AFL PA, also simply known as AFL Players) is the representative body for all current and past professional Australian Football League (AFL) and AFL Women's (AFLW) players. The AFL PA promotes and protects its membe ...

(AFLPA) in Indigenous engagement and was a founding director of the Unity Foundation which worked to provide housing and support for homeless Indigenous youth.

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Clarke, Xavier 1983 births Living people St Kilda Football Club players Brisbane Lions players Australian rules footballers from the Northern Territory St Mary's Football Club (NTFL) players Indigenous Australian players of Australian rules football Casey Demons players Sandringham Football Club players West Preston Football Club players Sportspeople from Darwin, Northern Territory