GOALKICKING great Tony Modra is "going OK" after he was seriously injured in a truck accident on his cattle property in South Australia on Thursday, according to his former Adelaide teammate and friend Mark Ricciuto.
Modra, renowned as one of the AFL's most brilliant players in a career spanning 1992 to 2001 at Adelaide and Fremantle, was taken to hospital in a critical condition with head injuries on Thursday night.
Modra was driving a truck on his property at Back Valley, about 90km south of Adelaide, when the vehicle struck a tree about 5.15pm ACST (5.45pm AEST) on Thursday.
The news sparked concern across the AFL world on Thursday evening, and Ricciuto told his Triple M radio show on Friday morning that he had spoken to Modra's wife, Erica, who provided a positive update.
"It's pretty amazing that he's got through it," Ricciuto said. "(Erica) said to me just before, he's not gonna be the same good-looking Tony Modra. He's gonna have some scars.
"And I said, well, 'he can be like us for once instead of being good-looking as he always has been'.
"So he's going OK, and we're fingers crossed he's gonna get through it OK at the moment.
"It wasn't a good place to be by the sounds of it, and they got through it and … he's in a reasonable position at this stage."
Modra was the sole occupant of the truck that was involved in the accident, which Ricciuto said was "a complete freak accident".
"It was extremely windy as everyone knows yesterday, and, a complete freak accident, a tree got uprooted and fell across the road right in front of him as he was driving on the correct side of the road and hit his windscreen," Ricciuto said.
"Just an absolute freak accident. He didn't veer off [the road], didn't even get time to try and avoid it. He was doing the right thing and [the tree] hit the windscreen and that's how it happened."
Fremantle coach Justin Longmuir, who played alongside Modra at the Dockers from 1999 to 2001, was shocked by the news.
"It's pretty fresh for me like it is for everyone," Longmuir said after Fremantle's nine-point win over Geelong on Thursday night.
"He's obviously a big part of the Freo family, and all I can say is I wish him and his family well.
"Hopefully, he can pull through. I'm thinking of him. We're all thinking of him and his family."
Modra has lived on a beef and cattle farm at Waitpinga since 2003.
He shot to AFL fame with Adelaide, becoming renowned as one of the game's greatest drawcards for his spectacular high marking and prolific goalkicking when playing for the Crows between 1992 and 1998.
A star forward, he booted 129 goals in the 1993 season, but was sidelined by a knee injury when the Crows won their first premiership in 1997.
The next season, Adelaide again won the premiership but Modra didn't play in the Grand Final after being infamously dropped from the team by coach Malcolm Blight after a qualifying final.
At the end of the 1998 season Modra left for Fremantle, where he played another 47 games, kicking 148 goals across three seasons before retiring because of ongoing knee injuries.
Modra returned to live in South Australia and was welcomed back at the Crows, where he remains one of the club's most beloved figures.
A dual All-Australian and five-time Crows leading goalkicker, Modra, who was born in McLaren Vale, south of Adelaide, kicked 588 goals in 165 AFL games.
SA Premier Peter Malinauskas and the state's opposition leader Ashton Hurn both described Modra as an "icon" of the state, while Adelaide coach Matthew Nicks said Modra had a unique impact on the sport and the Crows.
"There's certain people that have an aura about them and Tony is one of those," Nicks told reporters on Friday.
"When you think about the Adelaide Crows, Tony's name is one that comes to mind.
"He's an entertainer. We all have different roles at a football club, his role was to entertain."
Nicks hadn't witnessed anyone with the same popularity as Modra.
"The profile he had, I don't think it changed him at all," he said.
"It's not the character that he is; he's a country boy through and through.
"Our prayers are there, our thoughts, everything we can possibly do - which is not much at the moment - is there for him.
"We just hope he fights through this one."
Port Adelaide coach Josh Carr described news of Modra's accident as "devastating".
"Our thoughts as a football club are with Tony's family and him himself, and the Adelaide football club," Carr told reporters.
"All our memories, for me in particular, of growing up was if you took a hanger, it was a Modra."
