David Pocock has revealed his humbling charity efforts in Africa last year as the inspiration behind his spectacular return to Australian rugby in 2018.

The superstar flanker crowned his stellar comeback from a 12-month sabbatical with an extraordinary John Eales Medal triumph, Pocock running away with the coveted prize despite missing the first five Tests of the voting period.

The 30-year-old said he’d been driven to produce career-best numbers in all facets for the Wallabies after witnessing first hand the desperate plight of his former compatriots in his native Zimbabwe.

“It was a bit of a reality check working in Zimbabwe, to be honest,” Pocock said after streeting the field to win Australian rugby’s highest individual honour by the biggest margin since Chris Latham in 2005.

“They’re incredible people – and I’m still involved in the things I was working on – but things are tough. I certainly got a bit of an insight into how hard it’s been for a lot of people for a long time now in Zimbabwe.

“So it certainly makes you appreciate the opportunities you have and the sacrifices that my parents made to move over here to give my brothers and I an opportunity here.

“I feel incredibly privileged to be able to do what I do and I know how many people have helped me along the way.

“So I really, really want to do them proud and make the most of the opportunity I do have, extract the most you can out of it that you possibly can.”

Pocock said his African crusade also rammed home the importance of work-life balance.

“You get a taste of things outside of rugby,” he said.

“When you’re 18, 19, 20, your whole life is about rugby.

“And then the further into your career you get, the more you realise that you have to have the ability to actually be a hundred per cent focused on rugby and then try and clear your head away from it, which is easier said than done.

“I met a few people who are really good at balancing things, which is something that’s important.

“There’s some real characters that seem to be able to, when the world’s falling to pieces around them, who could be totally immersed in that and doing their best and then having a good laugh.

“They take their work very seriously but not themselves. I’ve tried to bring that in about how I am around the team.”

Elated to join fellow Wallabies greats George Smith, Nathan Sharpe, Israel Folau and skipper Michael Hooper as a multiple John Eales Medal winner, Pocock said he’d trade the honour in a heartbeat for World Cup glory next year.

“That’s every rugby player’s dream,” he said.

“Since I was a kid, that’s been the dream.”