South Australia’s biggest footy scandals of 2022
From streakers, court cases, racial sledges and rude gestures, these football players and fans were embroiled in some of the biggest controversies of 2022.
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Footy players are no strangers to the spotlight, whether it’s at the elite AFL end or even in country and suburban leagues.
And often, they find themselves embroiled in situations they’d likely do differently if they had their time over.
Equally, spectators can sometimes overstep their bounds and feel enticed to grab a slice of attention under the bright lights.
From pitch invaders to rude gestures, and racial slurs to court proceedings, here are some of the biggest controversies to hit SA footy so far in 2022.
SHOWDOWN STREAKER
For two years running, we’ve had an uninvited invader inject themselves into a Showdown at Adelaide Oval.
Last year it was a shirtless bloke in footy shorts — but thankfully Covid-safe, with a face mask securely strapped around his ears.
This year it was a Smithfield man with a mullet, decked out in dress pants and loafers, a white collared shirt and Port scarf who tried his best to evade ground security during the last quarter of Robbie Gray’s farewell game.
While the dash ended in tears — it always does — it was an example of “practice makes progress”. Jeremy Cortvriend managed to dodge staff for some time out in the middle, perhaps because this was not his first rodeo.
No, evidently this was Cortvriend’s first live AFL experience since serving a four-year ban for a similar pitch invasion in 2017.
He pleaded for leniency court, claiming he deserved some credit for keeping his threads on. “I didn’t do a nudie run,” he told the magistrate.
Of course, that’s no free pass, and Cortvriend copped a fresh six-year ban from the Adelaide Oval Stadium Management Authority.
Cortvriend was last spotted trying to sell the loafers that carried him across Adelaide Oval on Facebook Marketplace.
FRAMPTON FLIPS THE BIRD
From “Stone Cold” Steve Austin to anti-authoritarian singers and any peak-hour motorist who’s ever been cut off — most of us have extended a middle finger as a coping mechanism when the pressure valve hits a certain number.
And it seems footy players, from suburban level to the AFL, face the same struggles when the vitriol coming over the fence reaches a certain tipping point.
That was exactly the case for Adelaide’s Billy Frampton, who was the subject of a SANFL investigation last month for an offence classed as “misconduct”.
Frampton, playing for the Crows’ reserves side in the SANFL, took an intercept mark in defence at Adelaide Oval and flipped the bird to a pocket of Norwood fans as he ran back to take his kick.
It’s unclear what sparked the action, but Crows SANFL coach Mick Godden later suggested on radio that Frampton — who switched from Port Adelaide after the 2019 season — was the type of player who enjoyed crowd interaction.
PHILLIPS FLIPS SIDES
Can a football fairytale be a scandal at the same time? Probably not.
But in a footy-mad town like Adelaide, when the undisputed best player in AFLW history crosses Port Rd — it’s clearly more than just another off-season contract story.
Erin Phillips’ Port Adelaide pedigree is well chronicled, along with her international success as a basketballer and her return to Australia to play the game she loved as a child.
After building a peerless CV boasting three premierships and two AFLW league best-and-fairest awards in six seasons with Adelaide, Phillips made the decision in late April to return to her spiritual home, Alberton, for season seven.
Given Phillips’ stature in the game, the move is akin to Brownlow Medallist Mark Ricciuto switching to Port in 2005, or Nat Fyfe ditching the Dockers for West Coast.
But even if any sense of injustice or betrayal from Crows fans survived past the wonderful “homecoming” storyline that everyone saw coming, it surely could not have outlived the impossibly emotional footage of Phillips breaking the news to her father, Port legend Greg, that she would captain the club where he played 343 SANFL games.
TRENGOVE BLOWS IT
Talk about chocolates to pickled livers. Former Port Adelaide and Melbourne player Jack Trengove went from the highs of team and individual success to the lows of an Adelaide Magistrates Court shaming in April this year.
The court’s finding — Trengove was not present due to interstate work commitments — was the culmination of proceedings after his 2021 footy celebrations suddenly hit a roadside tree.
Trengove was part of Prince Alfred Old Collegians’ Adelaide Footy League premiership side on September 11 last year. That followed his crowning the day before, as the league’s best and fairest player by winning the Keith Sims OAM Medal.
After a day of celebrating, Trengove was involved in a single-car crash with a tree in North Adelaide, where police later recorded a blood-alcohol reading three times the legal limit.
Trengove lost his licence for 12 months — but according to his representative, that penalty was nothing compared with “the wrath” of his then-pregnant wife.
ANOTHER OVAL RACIAL SLUR
Adelaide Oval is developing an unfortunate reputation as the home of ugly crowd incidents. From run-ins with rival coaches to unacceptable abuse from certain spectators, it holds a chequered track record in recent years.
As if the Eddie Betts banana disgrace of 2016, and a 2014 taunt at Bachar Houli weren’t enough, a crowd member put Adelaide Oval back in the spotlight for the wrong reasons in July when Carlton’s Adam Saad was the target of a racial slur.
The AFL investigated claims Saad was called a “terrorist” during Adelaide’s 29-point win over the Blues in round 19.
The fan was spoken to by stadium security and SA Police but was not ejected from the arena. It was unclear whether Saad heard the remark.
Saad was all class in response, seeking education in the face of the abuse.
“We’ve just got to educate around making comments like that,” he said. “At the end of the day I know who I am as a person and us as a Muslim community. As long as we can educate the person and move things forward.
“Those things shouldn’t be said, but hopefully the club and the AFL will investigate and look after it.”
JESS GET ON WITH IT
Forget the footy oval, it was a case of the courtroom becoming the battleground when former AFL player Jesse White scaled up his bid to reduce a suburban league suspension last month.
White, a former Sydney and Collingwood forward who racked up 127 AFL games across a 10-year career, had copped a three-week ban for striking from the Adelaide Footy League tribunal, for throwing an elbow at an opponent during a Division 2 game for Broadview.
He initially accepted the ban, which would have sidelined him for the last three games of the premiership season. But the maths showed that sitting out the third match would have left him one game short of meeting the minimum number of matches to qualify for finals.
Enter a QC and an appeal to the Supreme Court, where Auxiliary Justice Tilmouth quashed the ban on the basis that White was denied procedural fairness in the AdFL’s handing down of the three-match penalty.
All clear, play on.
TRANSGENDER FURORE
Gender diversity and fairness in football was the juggling act when comments on social media made it into the headlines in August.
At the core of the issue was a post on Adelaide Footy League’s Facebook page, which questioned whether it was fair for a transgender player to play in a women’s competition in suburban footy.
The comments predictably divided opinion, with critics labelling them transphobic.
The AFL, SANFL and the Adelaide Footy League strongly denounced the comments in support of the game’s self-proclaimed mandate that “football is a game for all”, that is “a safe and inclusive environment that is free from harassment and discrimination”.
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