REMEMBER when Sam Butler snapped both bones in his leg in a VFL game in 2024? Will Edwards certainly does.

The game stopped for 30 minutes while they waited for an ambulance to get to Box Hill City Oval to take Butler away. But it turns out Edwards didn't emerge unscathed from that contest either. Far from it.

The Sydney defender didn't make his AFL debut until round seven this year – 1241 days after he was added to Swans' list as a Category B rookie – and part of the delay stems from that collision with Butler two years earlier.

While all the focus was understandably on Butler that day, it turned out Edwards also suffered a nasty infection in his shin in the same contest. He then broke the fibula in the same leg later in the year and suffered another infection, before a stress fracture in the same spot wiped out another four months.

Same leg, myriad issues, but lots of time on the sidelines.

"Sam Butler actually reached out to me when I debuted, which was really, really kind of him. But at the time, I was worried for him. I didn't really think anything of my leg. Then it sort of turned out to be not ideal," Edwards told AFL.com.au after Sydney beat North Melbourne on Saturday.

"He actually snapped his leg in half and it pierced my skin a little bit. It was my shin against his shin.

"Then a week after, I had this little lump on my leg and then played the game (in Melbourne) and flew home. It came up real red. I felt really crook went straight to the hospital and ... ended up being in hospital for about a week. Antibiotics in the drip and everything.

"The second one (was after) I broke my broke my fibula against Collingwood (in the VFL in August 2024) in one of the last rounds. I had surgery on that, got a plate put in and it actually got infected from the surgery. I was in hospital for probably two weeks with that one. I had an open wound getting pumped out. Then I had an IV drip in my arm for probably 4 or 5 weeks. I had to go to the hospital every day to get it changed over. It was pretty full on."

Then his 2025 was wiped out with a stress fracture in the same spot.

"I was out for about 16 weeks with that, so it was just one thing after the other. I never thought the debut would come," he said.

Edwards, who turned 23 last Friday, has now played the past three games for Dean Cox, stepping up to hold down a key post in a team sitting on top of the ladder, soaring towards September again. But for a long time, Edwards didn't think he'd ever play at the highest level.

"I waited four years or so, sort of biding my time; that's the thing with playing in a quality side like the Swans, you've got to bide your time. But the last three weeks have been unreal. You dream of it always as a kid and then, third game in, it sort of feels normal, a little bit," Edwards said.

"But there was a time where I was like, 'Oh, is my time ever going to come?'. Because the people above me just were playing so well and I was obviously on the sidelines a lot. Four years without playing a game, a lot of boys come through and get delisted after a couple of years ... if you don't get your shot. So there was times where you're like, 'Is this ever, ever going to come true?'."

Standing 197cm and over 100kg, Edwards is a powerful beast, built like someone who should be playing next door for the NSW Waratahs at Allianz Stadium, instead of the SCG. Rugby union is in his blood. His brother played the code and so did his dad back in Gloucester, England. Both parents were born and raised in the United Kingdom, before moving to Australia in their early 20s. They knew nothing about footy when they arrived, but they do now.

Edwards played junior football for the Manly Bombers, then the North Shore Bombers, while progressing through the Swans' academy. Isaac Heeney, Callum Mills and Errol Gulden are the poster boys of the academy, but Edwards is another off the production line alongside the likes of Nick Blakey and Sam Wicks.

With star key defender Tom McCartin unavailable on the weekend, backline coach Mark McVeigh had one man in mind to take the job on Roos star Nick Larkey. And the third-gamer delivered, holding North Melbourne's captain goalless for the first time since June last year, and only the second time since 2024.

"To come in on my third game and play on Nick Larkey, one of the best forwards in the comp ... I did a bit of homework on him and it was pretty surreal, to play on him in my third game. But I am pretty happy with how I went," he said.

McCartin has been important in Edwards' development, as has veteran defender Dane Rampe. But without the academy, he doesn't think he would be in this position.

Now that he is, he doesn't want to go back to playing off-Broadway at places like Tramway Oval, Port Melbourne or Moorabbin.

"I've had a few people say to me, 'Don't count the games, make the games count'," he said. "That's what I'm going for at the moment; just every time I get my opportunity, make them count and the games will come."

Edwards waited years for this opportunity, now he is making every game count in 2026. Good luck taking it back off him.