{"id":745958,"date":"2026-06-19T04:39:10","date_gmt":"2026-06-19T04:39:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/745958\/"},"modified":"2026-06-19T04:39:10","modified_gmt":"2026-06-19T04:39:10","slug":"afl-great-tony-modra-in-critical-condition-after-truck-crash-near-adelaide-afl","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/745958\/","title":{"rendered":"AFL great Tony Modra in critical condition after truck crash near Adelaide | AFL"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tony Modra\u2019s wife has thanked the two first responders who rushed to the AFL<\/a> great\u2019s aid after a truck accident.<\/p>\n

Modra is in a critical but stable condition in an Adelaide<\/a> hospital with head injuries after an accident on his cattle property on Thursday afternoon.<\/p>\n

The former Adelaide and Fremantle star was injured when a tree branch was believed to have broken through the windshield of a truck he was driving.<\/p>\n

Modra\u2019s wife Erica has expressed her gratitude to the two responders who were first at the scene of the accident at Back Valley, about 90km south of Adelaide.<\/p>\n

Former Crows captain Mark Ricciuto, who remains one of the injured footballer\u2019s best friends, relayed messages from Erica Modra on his Triple M breakfast show on Friday morning.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe just wants to say a very big thank you to the first responders, called Sarah and Anthony, who saved his life and helped talk through to Erica while things were going down,\u201d Ricciuto said.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe said he\u2019s going all right. It\u2019s pretty amazing that he\u2019s got through it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Modra has lived on a beef and cattle farm at Waitpinga, south of Adelaide, since 2003.<\/p>\n

The 57-year-old rose to AFL fame with Adelaide, becoming renowned as one of the game\u2019s greatest drawcards for his spectacular high marking and prolific goal-kicking when playing for the Crows between 1992 and 1998.<\/p>\n

He then spent three seasons with Fremantle, playing alongside current Dockers coach Justin Longmuir.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s obviously a big part of the Freo family and all I can say is I wish him and his family well,\u201d Longmuir said after Fremantle\u2019s win against Geelong on Thursday night.<\/p>\n

\u201cHopefully, he can pull through. I\u2019m thinking of him. We\u2019re all thinking of him and his family.\u201d<\/p>\n

SA Premier Peter Malinauskas and the state\u2019s opposition leader Ashton Hurn both described Modra as an \u201cicon\u201d of the state, while Adelaide coach Matthew Nicks said Modra had a unique impact on the sport and the Crows.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s certain people that have an aura about them and Tony is one of those,\u201d Nicks said. \u201cWhen you think about the Adelaide Crows, Tony\u2019s name is one that comes to mind.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s an entertainer. We all have different roles at a football club, his role was to entertain.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nicks hadn\u2019t witnessed anyone with the same popularity as Modra.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe profile he had, I don\u2019t think it changed him at all,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s not the character that he is; he\u2019s a country boy through and through.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur prayers are there, our thoughts, everything we can possibly do \u2013 which is not much at the moment \u2013 is there for him. We just hope he fights through this one.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tony Modra\u2019s wife has thanked the two first responders who rushed to the AFL great\u2019s aid after a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":745959,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[560],"tags":[638,64,63,55,639,85],"class_list":["post-745958","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\/745958","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=745958"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/745958\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/745959"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=745958"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=745958"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=745958"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}