A streaker has been booed off Adelaide Oval after interrupting Geelong’s AFL clash with the Crows on Friday night.
Adelaide were coming hard at Geelong during the third quarter when umpires had to stop the game to remove the rogue fan, who had jumped the barrier fencing and ran into the middle of live play near the ball.
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The man was filming himself with a phone as he ran into Geelong’s forward 50 with a crowd of players around him, even bumping into Brodie Smith before players even realised he was there.
“We’ve got to stop this game — there’s an idiot out there on the field,” James Brayshaw said
“Astounding.”
The man managed to evade security before Crows midfielder Ben Keays flattened him with a hip and shoulder, reminiscent of the late Andrew Symonds’s famous effort on the cricket field in 2008.
“And Keays just deals with him,” Brayshaw added.
“That’s just amazing that you could think that that’s something you would ever do.”
Matthew Richardson added: “That’s the end of him coming to the footy.”
Brian Taylor noted that it was a “vital” stage of the game that had been interrupted.
“Cats making momentum, Adelaide trying to work their way back into it — it’s a finely balanced game.”
Luckily, the game wasn’t too significantly affected, with the Cats hanging onto their lead to finish 19-point winners on the back of four goals from Tom Hawkins.
Hawkins slotted three goals in 12 minutes after the Crows briefly hit the front in the third quarter of Geelong’s 14.12 (96) to 11.11 (77) victory at Adelaide Oval on Friday night.
The 35-year-old’s match-turning feats were decisive in Geelong banking consecutive wins to open their season.
Adelaide now have two losses ahead of a testing trip to Fremantle next weekend.
Hawkins, in his 349th AFL game, was dominant while Tom Stewart (28 disposals, 11 marks) was superb in his 150th.
Gryan Miers was another stand-out with three goals and 26 possessions, Jeremy Cameron kicked two goals, skipper Patrick Dangerfield collected 23 disposals against his former club and Max Holmes (24 touches) was creative from halfback.
Adelaide’s Darcy Fogarty, Izak Rankine, Taylor Walker and Chris Burgess kicked two goals apiece.
Midfielder Matt Crouch gathered a match-high 38 disposals and Rory Laird (29 touches) was also busy, but the Crows were always playing catch-up after being jumped by Geelong in the opening quarter.
The Cats swung two late changes with influential duo Mitch Duncan (family reasons) and Tom Atkins (undisclosed injury) absent.
But after Adelaide’s Jake Soligo kicked the first goal of the game, the visitors kicked four consecutive goals including two from Miers.
That scoring spurt created a match-high 26-point lead late in the quarter and the Cats held a handy 6.3 to 3.2 quarter-time advantage.
The tide turned in general play, but only slightly on the scoreboard, as Adelaide logged a whopping 24 inside 50s but could only muster 2.3 for the second term.
Geelong led 7.5 to 5.5 at halftime but the advantage rapidly disappeared in the third quarter as Adelaide’s Fogarty snapped one goal and helped create another for Walker to tie the scores.
And when Rankine snapped accurately 10 minutes into the term, the Crows held a one-point lead.
Enter Hawkins: the big Cat snared three of four Geelong goals in a game-turning 12 minutes.
He soon logged his fourth goal and his team led by four goals at three quarter-time, 12.7 to 8.7.
The 44,758-strong pro-Crows crowd sniffed a comeback when an early Walker goal was followed by another from ruckman Reilly O’Brien to leave the hosts 16 points down with seven minutes left.
But misses from Fogarty — who from 10 metres out slammed the ball into a goal post — and Walker followed, before Miers and Brad Close iced the win with goals in the last 90 seconds.
– With AAP
