FORMER Fitzroy and Essendon forward Darren Wheildon says that when he looks back on his elite football career he wishes he had taken the game a bit more seriously.

Wheildon joined the Lions at the age of 17, and his many great moments in the VFL and AFL included a bag of seven goals against the Brisbane Bears at Carrara in 1989 in just his third game.

He also played a key role in Fitzroy's 1989 reserves Grand Final win over Geelong, booted seven goals against St Kilda in 1990, and bagged a haul of eight against the Sydney Swans at the SCG in 1993.

Yet Wheildon ended up playing only 70 AFL games.

"I wasn't the hardest trainer and I was known as a bit of a party boy, I suppose," the man known as 'Doc' says on the latest episode of Life After Footy.

"I used to have a drink on a Saturday and Sunday, and pretty heavily I suppose.

"But that's just the way it was back then."

Sacked by the Lions after the 1994 season, Wheildon later spent a year at Essendon.

But after being hit by a car in King Street, at the end of a long night out on the town, his AFL career was over.

"I should've trained harder and got off the sauce," Wheildon says.

Still, Wheildon is loving life these days. He lives at Wonthaggi on the Gippsland coast, works in the local area as a builder, and still loves a few beers when the day is done.