Sav Rocca regrets missing son’s birth to play in 2005 elimination final

SAV Rocca says if he had his time again he would stay at the hospital to see his second son’s birth rather than make a mad dash to play in an elimination final. But he had a good reason.

Sav Rocca arrives at Telstra Dome for the 2005 elimination final.

BEING at the birth of your child is more important than a game of footy — even a final.

Take it from a man who made the call to leave his wife’s hospital bedside to get to the ground at the last minute — almost literally.

Sav Rocca hitched a ride in a police car to get from Mercy Hospital for Women in Heidelberg to what was then Telstra Dome for the 2005 elimination final, arriving just 15 minutes before running on to the ground for the pre-game warm-up.

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He was moments from being scratched from the team as his wife’s labour, which started at 1.30am, stretched into its 12th hour.

Sav Rocca arrives at Telstra Dome for the 2005 elimination final.

Football manager Tim Harrington congratulates Rocca at quarter-time on the birth of his son.

With Collingwood captain Scott Pendlebury’s wife Alex expecting the couple’s first son any day, the former Magpies and Kangaroos goalkicker says he now regrets leaving the hospital 12 years ago. But he did have a good reason.

“Pendlebury’s story is a little different from mine,” Rocca said.

“I hadn’t played in a final in my whole career and it could have been my last game. It was my second child and I just thought this was something I had always been searching for.

“But yes, today I do regret not being at my son’s birth.”

Rocca received a phone call on the bench two minutes before the first bounce against Port Adelaide informing him he had a new baby boy.

“It was a little hard to focus but once the game started I was all right.”

Rocca kicked two goals but Port ran out 87-point winners. He played on the next year but managed just nine games before retiring, with that elimination final his only September appearance in 257 games.

Sav Rocca takes a mark in front of Port Adelaide’s Darryl Wakelin in the 2005 elimination final.

Sav Rocca and son Lucas, born minutes before the first bounce.

Pendlebury says he will leave Collingwood’s game against GWS during the match if Alex goes into labour.

Richmond defender Alex Rance said today a game of footy couldn’t compare to the birth of a child and he wouldn’t take the chance by even getting on the plane to Sydney.

“I wouldn’t go,” he said on radio station Nova 100. “It’s the birth of your first child, how is it even comparable.”

As for his 2005 police car ride, Rocca said he didn’t remember reports the dash broke the speed limit, but conceded the siren may have gone on “for a couple of seconds”.

“It might’ve been my knee that touched it,” he said.