Australian Rules football has been left in shock after the son of Adelaide Crows coach Phil Walsh was charged with his murder.
Advertisement
Police and ambulance officers were called to Walsh’s family home in Somerton Park, Adelaide in the early hours of the morning after reports of a domestic dispute.
Walsh’s wife, Meredith, was being treated in hospital for non life-threatening injuries from an incident that left players, organisers and fans of Australia’s own football code in shock.
MELBOURNE, July 3 (Reuters) – The coach of Australian Rules football team Adelaide Crows has been stabbed to death and his son arrested and charged with murder, police said on Friday, sending shockwaves through the country’s richest sporting competition.
Upon his appointment by the Crows, Walsh had invoked his children.
Flowers and tributes are placed outside Phil Walsh’s home.
The details surrounding the death are murky, but police allege Cy returned to the property at 2 a.m. on Friday morning and was involved in an argument with his father.
Transplanted to the world of the AFL, Walsh was happy to carry the same tag.
The Adelaide Crows sit in seventh place, having won seven games out of 12.
Police said they understood that Walsh’s son lived with his parents.
He became strength and conditioning coach at Geelong football club in 1995, joined Port Adelaide as an assistant coach four years later and then the West Coast Eagles in 2009.
Phil Walsh’s death is a awful tragedy for his family and all who knew him @Adelaide_FC.
As he grappled with learning Japanese and picking up young women in 2009, Cy wrote: “I believe the line from batman goes something like this: “its not who we are underneath, but our actions that define us””.
“We ask if you could please respect the privacy of his family, as well as our players, coaches and staff, at this extremely hard time”.
Not unlike the passing of ex- Power and Crows assistant Dean Bailey in 2014, Port Adelaide will work with their local rival on a suitable tribute to Walsh.
He wasn’t sure when the Crows’ players would be ready to resume playing but predicted they would be in for a tough season. History will judge that group working under Mark Williams as one of the best ever, featuring as it did Alastair Clarkson, Dean Bailey and Walsh.
“I lost that connection and I’m trying to reconnect with my son, which I have done”.
“I can’t tell you anything about the argument or the circumstances, but as a result of that both Mr Walsh and his wife received the wounds”, Bray said, adding that a knife was used and had been recovered.
The Crows are sitting seventh on the table and were set to play Geelong on Sunday.
Walsh played 122 games in the Victorian Football League, the forerunner to the AFL, for Collingwood, Richmond and the Brisbane Bears between 1983 and 1990.
Advertisement
Geelong star Tom Hawkins said the news was shocking. “It’s hard to comprehend that a man that has touched many lives is gone”, he tweeted.
