{"id":524385,"date":"2026-03-07T09:36:21","date_gmt":"2026-03-07T09:36:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/524385\/"},"modified":"2026-03-07T09:36:21","modified_gmt":"2026-03-07T09:36:21","slug":"afl-news-2026-tom-hanks-at-gws-giants-vs-hawthorn-hawks-match-clayton-oliver-debut","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/524385\/","title":{"rendered":"AFL news 2026 | Tom Hanks at GWS Giants vs Hawthorn Hawks match; Clayton Oliver debut"},"content":{"rendered":"

Movie star Tom Hanks turned goal umpire at Engie Stadium during GWS<\/a>‘s Opening Round 19.8 (122) to 14.11 (95)<\/a> win against Hawthorn<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Hanks was spotted early in the match and entertained the crowd and commentators alike when he mimicked a goal umpire in the second quarter when Stephen Coniglio slotted home a goal.<\/p>\n

“Tom Hanks loves it,” caller Mark Howard said on Fox Footy. <\/p>\n

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Hanks was sitting near fellow actor Stephen Graham, with whom he’s filming a sequel to Greyhound.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Tom Hanks awards Stephen Coniglio’s goal. \u00a0Fox Footy<\/p>\n

If both Hollywood stars are rusted-on Giants fans, they would have been impressed by the injury-hit side that blew the Hawks off the park in the first half.<\/p>\n

Adam Kingsley’s men led 8.3 (51) to 5.2 (32) in a high-scoring first quarter before that lead extended to 13.4 (82) to 7.5 (47) at the major break.<\/p>\n

GWS had two injury concerns during the second quarter with Lachie Ash receiving hamstring treatment and Toby Greene having medics attend to his ankle.<\/p>\n

Both men returned and kept pushing the Giants towards victory.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Lachie Ash.\u00a0AFL Photos via Getty Images<\/p>\n

During the final quarter, the Hawks looked like they were in with a sniff, trailing by 22 points with five minutes on the clock.<\/p>\n

However, the Giants sunk their opponents thanks to two newcomers.<\/p>\n

Hawthorn had gone inside 50 with three minutes left before the Giants started a transition.<\/p>\n

Near the defensive arc, new recruit Clayton Oliver shaped to bomb but stayed composed and handballed to Finn Callaghan. That short play led to Jake Stringer running free before wobbling the ball forward. Debutant Phoenix Gothard then snapped home a goal to put the Hawks away.<\/p>\n

“The composure of Clayton Oliver not to bomb the ball at half-back and create the extra handball to maintain possession (was key),” Jordan Lewis said on Fox Footy.<\/p>\n

Hawthorn’s Josh Battle had the final point for the match as the Giants won by 27 points.<\/p>\n

Oliver finished with one goal from his Giants debut while Stringer kicked five.<\/p>\n

Oliver and Lachie Whitfield collected 27 disposals each.<\/p>\n

Oliver was delighted to have started the new stage of his career with a win.<\/p>\n

“I am a bit lost for words actually. Unreal effort by the boys,” he told Fox Footy.<\/p>\n

“It was pretty tough. Every five minutes Hawthorn came with everything they’ve got.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Movie star Tom Hanks turned goal umpire at Engie Stadium during GWS‘s Opening Round 19.8 (122) to 14.11…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":524386,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[560],"tags":[638,64,63,55,639,85],"class_list":["post-524385","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-afl","tag-afl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-australian-football-league","tag-australianfootballleague","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/524385","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=524385"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/524385\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/524386"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=524385"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=524385"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=524385"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}