It’s hard to imagine a tougher pathway for a second chance at AFL level than the one new Essendon forward Alec Waterman has had to endure.

The 24-year-old this week signed a one-year contract with the Bombers, following an impressive month-long train-on period that saw the West Australian produce stellar performances in the Dons' match simulation session and practice game against Carlton.

It's a due reward for the Claremont product, who has already experienced the highs and lows that come with being an AFL player.

A highly touted under-18 prospect, Waterman's AFL journey started as a promising father-son selection at West Coast in 2014, to being bedridden for a year and a half with illness, to being delisted and now earning a spot on an AFL list again.

His father Chris, a two-time premiership player with West Coast, revealed the remarkable story of his son’s plight from his initial diagnoses of battling adrenal fatigue to potentially becoming the 1171st player to don the sash come round one.

”I’m pretty happy for him just with what he’s been through for the last five or so years (because) it’s been pretty harrowing watching him bedridden for 18 months,” Waterman told SEN Drive with Bob and Andy.

“He was playing for East Perth, the aligned club with the Eagles, back in ’15. He came home Saturday morning and he was really crook. They had the East Perth versus West Perth derby on the Monday.

“He managed to get up for it, but on the Tuesday, he went to the Eagles who ran blood tests and said, ‘you’ve got glandular fever’.

“Two weeks later, he eventually found out he had chronic fatigue, (and then it turned into) adrenal fatigue, so he had to learn about that for the next 18 months in terms of how to beat it because there was no medical prescription for it.”

Unfairly, the illness robbed Waterman of having a real crack at the Eagles, with the club delisting him at the end of 2016 after two seasons and zero games.

Following a switch to strictly implementing and maintaining a healthy lifestyle, Waterman slowly emerged from being bedridden to regaining a sense of normality.

After coaching a local under-16s football team, he began to re-introduce himself to the surrounds of WAFL side Claremont, where he built up the motivation and physicality to play high-level football once again.

It was there that Waterman would have to fight through another gruelling physical obstacle on his pathway back to playing.

“In 2018 he started running for the Claremont reserves, then late in ’18 he rung me up and said, ‘I might have a crack at playing’,” Waterman’s father said.

“He didn’t get back into the seniors, but in 2019, he made his (Claremont senior) debut early and then three games in he played against West Coast and Jake (his brother) was in the other team.

“Early in the quarter, he got a nasty knee in his back and he played it out, felt crook Sunday night, and I said, ‘come around to mine’. When he got here, he was pretty ordinary, so I sent him off to the doc.

“He rung me in an hour and said, ‘I’m in the back of an ambulance, I’ve got three broken ribs and a punctured lung', so that ruined the rest of his year.”

While managing a remarkable return from injury to play for Claremont at the end of 2019, last year proved to be the breakout season that sowed the seeds for where Waterman finds himself today.

Battling not being 100 per cent physically and with an understandably reduced aerobic capacity, Waterman turned himself from a cagey inside midfielder to a powerful medium forward.

His father Chris noted how his son’s impressive figures of 26 goals in 10 games in the Tigers’ run to the WAFL Grand Final peaked AFL clubs' interest.

“He just got better and better and as the season got on towards the end, he had a real big semi-final and that’s when the phone calls started coming in and that’s when Essendon got (interested),” he said.

“I’d been speaking to Adrian (GM of list and recruiting Adrian Dodoro) quite regularly throughout last year as he’s (Waterman) been motoring along and getting better.

“The draft came, and we thought it might be a good opportunity for him with the new SSP (supplementary selection period) to train on and see how he fits in.

“He nearly came back (to Perth) the other week and we said, ‘why don’t you just keep him there because he’s going to come here and sit in the house for two weeks because of isolation’.

“Adrian was pretty good and said, ‘yep, we’ll keep him and throw him in against Carlton’. He bagged four and the rest is history.”

It’ll certainly be a proud day for the Watermans if Alec earns the right to don the sash and make his long-awaited AFL debut, a chance which may happen sooner rather than later if he continues his goalkicking exploits.

At the very least though, his journey of persistence is truly one of the feel-good stories of 2021.