Former Adelaide Crows coach Malcolm Blight has lifted the lid on the famous exit of Tony Modra.
After the Crows lost the first final to Melbourne in the 1998 finals series, Blight opted to drop the high-flying full-forward who had kicked 440 goals in 118 games for the South Australian club.
Modra had suffered a knee injury in the 1997 Preliminary Final, forcing him to miss Adelaide’s first ever AFL premiership, before he was omitted a year later and subsequently missed the back-to-back exploits of the Crows.
Discussing the departure of the Coleman Medallist and two-time All-Australian, who ended up at Fremantle, Blight said on Sportsday SA: “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.”
Blight added: “But I did the wrong thing, I should have thrown an olive branch out, but he’d had enough of me and I’d had enough of him.
“I should have been strong enough in myself to go and sit and talk to him because he would have been handy the following year…”
Originally published on aflnation.com.au
Listen to Blighty’s Modra story on Sportsday SA below: