Eddie Betts told to play on against St Kilda by wife Anna while giving birth to twin daughters

IT’S the day Eddie Betts will never forget — and it has nothing to do with breaking his drought for 2018 by kicking three goals in the Crows’ comfortable win against St Kilda at Etihad Stadium.

• Eddie Betts watched his twin daughters’ birth on the phone
• Adelaide eventually broke St Kilda’s resistance to win by 49 points
• Eddie Betts plays against St Kilda, despite his wife expecting twins

IT’S the day Eddie Betts will never forget — and it has nothing to do with breaking his drought for 2018 by kicking three goals in the Crows’ comfortable win against St Kilda at Etihad Stadium.

Betts was greeted to the unexpected but welcome news on Saturday morning that things were moving quicker than expected for wife Anna, who was expecting twins.

“It was weird as — she rang me this morning and she said ‘I’m going into labour’,” Betts told Channel Seven.

“I was at the hotel and I said, ‘What do you want me to do, get on a flight?’, and she said ‘No, the doc said they’re going to be out in half an hour so you’re going to miss it anyway’.

“But the babies are healthy, no names yet.

Eddie Betts’ wife Anna Scullie gave birth to twin daughters on Saturday.

“She gave me permission to play, so frustrating to not be there for the birth of our daughters but I saw it all on Facetime.”

It takes the Betts household to six with the couple already having two sons, Billy and Lewis.

Coach Don Pyke had a chuckle when he spoke of Betts’ preparations for the St Kilda match.

“You can imagine after that sort of event ...” Pyke said.

“Unfortunately he couldn’t get back there because of the speed at which it all happened.

“But he was on a natural high — the birth of your children is always something that brings great joy and delight to you and he’s a very proud man, Eddie.

“He’s rapt now to have two new daughters.

“It wasn’t planned to be today — he was sort of looking at early next week as the likely time.

“When he got the phone call from his wife this morning things were moving and you can’t stop that.

As Eddie Betts played against St Kilda on Saturday, he became father to twin daughters. AAP Image/Julian Smith

“From there, the conversation I had with him was, ‘What do you want to do?’

“It was going to prove difficult to get back to Adelaide in time so he was able to share the experience via modern technology, which was great.

“He got to see his babies born without actually being there and from then it was, ‘I want to play.’

“And again he came out and did his role tonight.”

As for the match itself, it was a workmanlike win against a side that Pyke had predicted would respond after being hammered by critics for its insipid loss to North Melbourne last week.

Eddie Betts with his sons Lewis and Billy ahead of Christmas last year..

It turned into a bit of a slog, but the Crows opened up the game and turned it into a comfortable win in the second half.

“The game we got was sort of what we expected,” Pyke said. “We knew St Kilda would be keen to rebound after last week and it was a fairly contested and pretty scrappy affair in the first half.

“And to our guys’ credit they hung in there and played some better footy in the second half to get the result.

“We didn’t play as well as we would have liked but to be able to come away with a win is what we came for so we’ll take that and move on.”

Originally published as Eddie Betts told to play on against St Kilda by wife Anna while giving birth to twin daughters