Among the rows of mourners that would visit the Gregory and Carr Funeral Home in the Sydney suburb of North Ryde, Will Edwards always stood out.
Although he dressed in a black suit to blend in, the 23-year-old is almost two metres tall. It’s a trait which contributed to making his debut for the Sydney Swans last month, and one which made him particularly good at his previous line of work as a funeral director.
Before Swans coach Dean Cox, Edwards was under the tutelage of Michael Bolton, chief operating officer of Walker Funerals which owns the funeral home. Bolton met Edwards in 2022 when the then 19-year-old was looking for casual work while playing in the Swans Academy.
“People don’t go to funerals often, it’s not something people certainly like to do, they’re generally uncomfortable. So what they’re looking for a lot of the time is some guidance: Where are the bathrooms? What time does the funeral start? Who’s the family?” Bolton said.
“Even as a younger person particularly people gravitated towards him because he stood out. You can hide away if you’re smaller or shorter and they wouldn’t recognise you as an employee, but given his physical stature people would gravitate towards him.”
Edwards would begin his shifts with a list of duties. They varied from preparing vehicles to visiting homes of the bereaved, to attending the funerals to help support them. On some days, he would then head straight to training afterwards.
“At one time he’d be at a funeral [then] he’d be out of the suit and be out mowing the lawn … There was just nothing that he wouldn’t do,” Bolton said. “It’s difficult to get good staff and he was so well-disciplined. The personality was great. For a younger person in this industry, he showed an extreme level of maturity around it … It’s a bit of a niche industry that people don’t understand, there’s no TAFE course or anything. But he made other people, whether it be mourners or other staff members, feel comfortable.”
Edwards left the job in 2023 when he was drafted to the Sydney Swans but would have to wait years before getting a chance to make his AFL debut after several infections, a broken fibula and stress fracture, kept him out of contention.
“I never really thought about being delisted or anything like that because as soon as those thoughts come into your head, you probably lose the passion a little bit,” Edwards said. “But there were times sitting in hospital, and I don’t mean to sob or anything, but you sort of go ‘am I ever going to play again’.”
But since making his debut for the Swans against the Western Bulldogs in April (with two of his former funeral home colleagues in attendance and Bolton watching from home), Edwards has already begun to make up for lost time. He’s played in every game since and won’t need any more funeral home shifts any time soon. Which is lucky considering he’s kept his former life hidden from his teammates.
“I think I’ve told a few of them in development meetings a couple of years ago, especially [former player and assistant coach] Brett Kirk was quite intrigued. But, I think I keep that one a bit under wraps, I think they’d get a bit freaked out by it,” he said.
Although, Edwards will bring some of what he learned in North Ryde with him to the Sydney Cricket Ground ahead of Saturday’s clash against Richmond.
“That job requires a lot of respect, a lot of emotional awareness and things like that,” he said. “It was probably a bit of an eye-opening job. [It’s] not super easy and I guess sort of set me up for a little bit of emotional awareness.”
