{"id":748261,"date":"2026-06-20T06:14:12","date_gmt":"2026-06-20T06:14:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/748261\/"},"modified":"2026-06-20T06:14:12","modified_gmt":"2026-06-20T06:14:12","slug":"adelaide-crows-fans-wish-tony-modra-well-as-they-take-on-melbourne-at-adelaide-oval","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/748261\/","title":{"rendered":"Adelaide Crows fans wish Tony Modra well as they take on Melbourne at Adelaide Oval"},"content":{"rendered":"

Former Adelaide Crows captain Mark Ricciuto says his former teammate Tony Modra is conscious and has a good prospect of recovery after facial surgery following a serious truck crash.<\/p>\n

Modra underwent surgery on Friday after the truck he was driving hit a tree<\/a> near Victor Harbor on Thursday.<\/p>\n

SA Health said on Saturday that the 57-year-old Waitpinga man was now in a stable condition at the Flinders Medical Centre.<\/p>\n

Ricciuto, now a Fox Sports AFL commentator, told the audience halfway through Saturday’s match against Melbourne: “Tony Modra is awake.”\u00a0<\/p>\n

“He’s awake with his wife Erica and his kids and they just want to say thank you for all the well wishes,” he added.\"A<\/p>\n

Tony Modra played 118 games for the Crows, as well as 47 for Fremantle. (Getty Images\/Michael Wilson)<\/p>\n

Ahead of the match at Adelaide Oval, Ricciuto said there had been worries that Modra would not survive following the crash, but he had shown the “grit” he was known for on the field while in hospital.<\/p>\n

He said his surgery on Friday included fixing the left side of his face, including his jaw, cheekbone and eye socket, which were injured when his truck’s windscreen hit a tree branch.<\/p>\n

“He might not be the same perfectly good-looking Tony Modra when he recovers, but the great news is there’s growing optimism he is going to recover and recover well,” Ricciuto said.<\/p>\n

Crows fans erupted in applause at the sixth minute of the match to wish Modra, who wore the number 6, well in his recovery from the crash.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The match against the Demons<\/a> was the first chance for many fans to pay tribute to one of the first superstar players for the team from the 1990s.<\/p>\n

\"Adelaide<\/p>\n

Adelaide Crows fans held signs wishing Tony Modra well during the match against Melbourne. (Mark Brake\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n

Adelaide Crows fan Adam Geisler came to the game wearing a T-shirt emblazoned with Modra’s image from his heyday.<\/p>\n

Mr Geisler was due to meet the two-time All-Australian and one-time Coleman Medallist at “The Bunker” behind-the-scenes experience.<\/p>\n

“Hopefully, he recovers well,” Mr Geisler said.<\/p>\n

“The show will go with him \u2014 of course it will, he’s Modra, he’s Godra \u2014 so he’ll make a full recovery, and we’ll see him back.”<\/p>\n

Fond memories of Modra<\/p>\n

Kathie Hams met Modra when her husband and son were playing for Willunga against Modra’s Encounter Bay team, after he retired from the AFL.<\/p>\n

“He’s a lovely, lovely man and I’m very sad that he’s had to go through this, but very grateful for the 78-year-old lady that found him and looked after him<\/a> until the ambos got there \u2014 that was brilliant,” Ms Hams said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Two<\/p>\n

Mother and daughter Kathie and Sally Hams admired Tony Modra during his heyday. (ABC News: James Wakelin)<\/p>\n

Her daughter, Sally Hams, called for more trees along country roads to be trimmed to make driving safer.<\/p>\n

“I think we need to chop these down because it’s devastating that this has happened,” she said.<\/p>\n

Another fan, Frank Kleinig, wished Modra “best of luck and a speedy recovery”.<\/p>\n

“It was just ‘wow’ and a freak accident \u2026 pretty bad news, but it’s good to see that he’s recovering,” he said.<\/p>\n

“Got a few scars he’ll have as war wounds.”\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Frank Kleinig was shocked to hear the news about Tony Modra on Thursday night. (ABC News: James Wakelin)<\/p>\n

Emergency services honoured<\/p>\n

The Crows had already planned to honour emergency services during Saturday’s match, with free tickets handed out to 3,000 first responders.<\/p>\n

South Australian Emergency Services Minister Rhiannon Pearce urged more people to consider taking on volunteer roles.<\/p>\n

AFL Saturday live<\/a><\/p>\n

The Crows take on the Demons at Adelaide Oval, with a spot in the top four on the line, in the first of three games of Saturday football. Follow live.<\/p>\n

“It really put at the forefront of our minds just how crucial and important it is, the work of our emergency services personnel,” she said.<\/p>\n

“They played a really important role in ensuring that Tony was able to get care and support as quickly as possible and it’s also a reminder that they do put themselves at risk to do what they do and we thank them for what they have done.”<\/p>\n

Speaking to SA Grandstand, former Port Adelaide AFL player Josh Francou said Modra was known for being competitive but not a smart alec or foul-mouthed on the field.<\/p>\n

“He just went out there and did his job \u2014 and did it pretty well,” Francou said.<\/p>\n

He said Modra was “three rungs” above other early Crows favourites Mark Ricciuto, Andrew McLeod and Darren Jarman.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former Adelaide Crows captain Mark Ricciuto says his former teammate Tony Modra is conscious and has a good…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":748262,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[28222,9126,6093,638,64,63,1154,6092,7804,85,358502,9119,427],"class_list":["post-748261","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-accident","tag-adelaide-crows","tag-adelaide-oval","tag-afl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-crash","tag-crows","tag-melbourne-demons","tag-sports","tag-tony-modra","tag-tribute","tag-tv"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/748261","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=748261"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/748261\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/748262"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=748261"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=748261"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=748261"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}