‘I’ve always thought it would have been great to have got to know Malcolm the person, not just Malcolm the coach’ says Crows great Tony Modra
Twenty years after one of the most famous trades in VFL-AFL history, Adelaide Football Club’s greatest goalkicker, Tony Modra, says he has one big regret.
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Twenty years after one of the most famous trades in VFL-AFL history, Adelaide’s greatest goalkicker Tony Modra says he has one big regret — not getting to know Malcolm Blight the person.
As the Crows prepare to play Fremantle — the club where cult figure Modra was controversially traded to at the end of 1998 after cruelly missing out on their 1997 and ‘98 premierships — the former high-leaping full forward said he wants to bury the hatchet completely with his former coach Blight, who dropped him after the ‘98 qualifying final loss to Melbourne.
“I’ve always thought it would have been great to have got to know Malcolm the person, not just Malcolm the coach,’’ Modra told The Advertiser before his two former clubs do battle at Adelaide Oval on Sunday.
“When you are playing you just get to see the one side of them, the coach, and I would like to get to know Malcolm as a person because obviously he had a bit of an impact on my life.
“I’m not sure whether I had one on his, but moving forward it would be great to catch up for a good chat.’’
Modra, who kicked a club record 440 goals in 118 games for Adelaide from 1992-98 and earned hero status in South Australia before being shockingly traded to the Dockers at the end of ‘98, said he had crossed paths with Blight in recent years but only for small talk.
“We’ve had (premiership) reunions where we’ve got to talk a little bit and have bumped into each other at the footy from time to time but with our game-day commitments, Malcolm’s radio and mine with the club, we’ve only had brief chats,’’ said Modra, who missed the Crows’ ‘97 grand final win against St Kilda through injury and the ‘98 flag decider against North Melbourne through form.
“I look forward to the day when we’ve got a bit more time where we can sit down and have a good chat about things. I would like to do that.’’
Blight, who remarkably led the Crows to their only premierships in his first two seasons in charge, last year said his greatest regret was not speaking to Modra before he left the club at the end of ‘98.
“The thing I did wrong, and I’ll say this now, I should have thrown an olive branch out to him to go and have a cup of coffee with him or sat down,” Blight told FIVEaa.
“But he’d had enough of me and at that moment I’d had enough of him. But I should’ve been strong enough in myself to actually go and sit and talk to him and see if we could work something out.
“He would’ve been handy the following year, he was better than probably what we ended up doing.
“I probably disappointed myself — that I should’ve gone and tried to have a chat to him somehow.
“Get over the egos, get over all that, but he was off and ended up going to Fremantle. He went very quickly from the club.
“Am I his favourite person? Probably not, but I respected what he did for the Adelaide Football Club for the time that he was there.”
BLIGHT this week told The Advertiser that he had seen Modra, now 50, “a number of times’’ in recent years and coached him in an EJ Whitten game.
The Australian Football Hall of Fame legend and 1972 Magarey and 1978 Brownlow Medallist said he would be happy to sit down with Modra now.
“If he wants to do it, of course I would do it,’’ Blight said.
But he said he still did not regret dropping him from his finals side because of his form struggles.
Modra underwent a left knee reconstruction following the 1997 preliminary final win against the Western Bulldogs after he ruptured his anterior cruciate ligament when he landed awkwardly in a marking contest in the first quarter.
He returned to AFL action against Carlton in round 16, 1998, and played eight consecutive games, kicking 19 goals, including four in the last home-and-away series game against West Coast, before being dropped following his one-goal effort in the eight-goal loss to the Demons.
“It was one of those decisions made at the time and I gave him the reasons,’’ Blight said.
“The regret was not offering him an olive branch after it, but the season ended, people go away and all sorts of things and he'd made up his mind that he was going to leave, so it was probably going to be mission impossible anyway.
But I would have liked to have wished him well, let him know that he’d been a great servant of the club.
“But he didn't want to talk to me either, so that’s the way it was.’’
Modra left Adelaide as a five-times leading goalkicker (1993-97), dual All-Australian (1993 and 1997) and Coleman Medallist (1997) while he also won the AFL Mark of the Year three times (1993, 1997 and 2000).
Discussing Modra’s departure, Blight said: “His form coming back from a knee injury wasn’t great.
“We were getting beaten by Melbourne in this first final in ’98 so I put him to half-back, just to get him into the game, and he played terribly.
“In fact, disinterested in some ways. So I spoke to him after the game, I said: ‘Look, that form is not good enough, you can go back and play for West Adelaide’.
“I said: ‘You won’t be playing in the ones, you’ll be going back to Westies.’ So he went into the locker room and apparently slammed the door and did some damage.
“He played only fairly the following week and then we went on to win the preliminary final and history says we won the grand final.
“It was bittersweet though.”
Modra was traded to Fremantle for draft picks 29 (Tyson Stenglein) and 34 (Bryan Beinke).
Midfielder Stenglein played 106 games for the Crows from 1999-2004 before being traded to West Coast.
Forward Beinke played 38 games and kicked 42 goals from 1999-2002 before being delisted.
MODRA was an instant hit at the Dockers, kicking a then club record 71 goals in 1999 in a struggling side which finished second last.
He followed with 50 majors from 16 games in 2000 and 27 from 11 matches in 2001 before retiring from the AFL at age 32.
Overall, Modra — who stood at just 188cm — booted 148 goals in 47 matches for Fremantle, giving him the remarkable record of 588 goals in just 165 games in the AFL at an outstanding average of 3.56 a game.
He was made a life member by Adelaide in 2008 and inducted into the SA Football Hall of Fame in 2014.
Modra was dubbed by inaugural Crows coach Graham Cornes as “bigger than Sir Donald Bradman” as he kicked 220 goals in his first 50 AFL games from 1992-94.
“When you look back at things, I think everything in regards to me leaving Adelaide could have been handled a bit better,’’ Modra said.,
“That’s from a club and individual point of view and it would have been great to have been able to talk to Blighty more about it but unfortunately it didn’t get to that stage.
“The club had won two premierships without me and I was pretty much told I’d be playing SANFL if I stayed, so the writing was on the wall.
“But in saying that I’ve got no regrets in having to go to Fremantle because it gave me a second opportunity, which was something I will always be grateful for, and it was great to be there and to see another side of football.
“I loved my time there and stayed for five years before moving back to Adelaide for family reasons.’’
Modra’s 10 goals against Melbourne at the MCG in round 10, 1999, is still a Dockers club record.
Former Crows recruiting manager James Fantasia, who was at the helm when Modra was traded, said the once unthinkable blockbuster move transpired without too much fallout from Adelaide’s fan base because of the back-to-back flags.
“Mods was a cult figure and forwards as good as him are hard to get, so I remember thinking at the time that there might be some supporter backlash,’’ he said.
“He was a celebrity in this town and was very popular among the (Crows) boys but I think the move came at the right time for him and the club.
“The writing was on the wall, Blighty never subscribed to the popularity vote or had an issue dealing anyone who had a name in the game and the fact that we had won two premierships without him made things a little easier.
“Once we got a fair and reasonable (trade) deal we were prepared to move on it.’’
Adelaide’s dual premiership captain Mark Bickley recalled the players being “hugely disappointed’’ when Modra left.
“Because we loved him as a teammate and he had been one of our best players,’’ Bickley said.
“But we were dealing with two strong personalities in Malcolm and Mods and didn’t envisage either of them backing down.
“And because we’d won two flags in a row no-one was questioning anything Malcolm was doing at that stage.’’
Modra has mended his bridges with Adelaide and has for the past five years been a match-day host for the club.
He will be at Adelaide Oval on Sunday and while he holds a soft spot for Fremantle, he will be hoping for a Crows win.
“You move on in life and me and my family (wife Erica and children, Hayley, 11, and Luke, 7) enjoy being a part of the Adelaide Football Club,’’ Modra said.
“The support we get from the fans is fantastic and while I didn't play in the 1997-98 grand finals I can always remember being a part of a premiership club.’’
Originally published as ‘I’ve always thought it would have been great to have got to know Malcolm the person, not just Malcolm the coach’ says Crows great Tony Modra
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