Country footy: CDFNL and Western Eagles ruck Craig Hardingham breaks a point post
A country footy match was forced to stop after a ruckman broke the point post and you won’t believe how the issue was resolved. See the mayhem.
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Ruckman often find different ways of imposing themselves on a game of footy but knocking out a point post might take the cake.
That was the case for Western Eagles coach Craig Hardingham during his side’s Colac and District league clash with Birregurra on Saturday afternoon.
Hardingham sent the post flying during the third quarter after taking a one-handed mark in front of his Birregurra opponent while playing at full-forward.
Footage posted to Facebook by CDFNL Live showed the post on the ground with officials quickly stopping the game to work out what was next.
Play was stopped for about 10 minutes.
A traffic cone eventually was eventually used as a temporary point post.
“I didn’t feel like I hit it that hard,” Hardingham said.
“I took the mark and all I heard was car horns going off and I turned around and the post was on the ground. I must have hit it flush.
“We didn’t even have an Auskick goalposts we could use or anything. The cone was the next best thing. It was snapped clean off at the bottom.
“Unfortunately I shanked the checkside and didn’t finish off something pretty funny.”
The goalpost appears likely to miss the rest of the season through injury although it did join in the post-match debrief in the Eagles changerooms.
“We took a few photos with it,” Hardingham said.
“Hopefully we can take it on Mad Monday with us and a few of the pubs will still let us in. I’ve had a few people call me Lethal (after Leigh Matthews) but I think I might be a little bigger than him.
“Once it went on Facebook, a few people I used to play with reached out and asked why I was still playing.”
Unfortunately for Hardingham, his Eagles eventually went down by 69 points.
James Beasley was named best on ground for the home side in his 150th game for the club.
Jack Parker and Josh Weatherhead finished with three goals apiece for Birregurra.
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