THERE was a newspaper cartoon running the rounds in the aftermath of the infamous Sirengate affair in Launceston.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
It was of trapped Beaconsfield miners, Brant Webb and Todd Russell, still stuck one kilometre underground at the time when AFL teams St Kilda and Fremantle were erroneously debating – akin to life and death, somewhat ironically – whether a siren had sounded or gesturing that they even heard it.
The courageous miners were nearly 50 kilometres away from Aurora Stadium, but the cartoon intimated something along the lines that sitting there in their darkened silence both men look to each other and asked was that the siren?
It was a time when sports reporters dashed back to file the story to beat all stories to find out the miners were about to be freed from underneath 100 tonnes of rock. Sirengate, as it was first dubbed, should have paled into insignificance.
So it’s incredulous to think football matters that much a decade on, but the incident is often people’s first thought when they play word association with Aurora Stadium.
The day – Sunday, April 30, 2006 – 10 years ago saw a scene at the ground probably never to be repeated.
Sirens struggling to be heard, indecisive umpires look confused and bewildered, St Kilda tagger Steven Baker miss the same shot twice, Fremantle coach Chris Connolly flailing his arms in the air during what was deemed play and Saint by nature, Lenny Hayes, shocking everybody within earshot of hearing him swear.
“Old Chris rushed onto the ground,” Baker starts to laugh, retelling the story, “and Lenny then was telling him to F-off.
“It was funny at the time, but I just wished now I had kicked that goal just to give Chris a spray.”
The match had been tense all day. The Saints were expected to win on their part-time home ground – twice a year – of nearly four years. But Fremantle, on the club’s third trip to Launceston, took them on winningly.
St Kilda through attrition more than anything clawed their way back. When Hayes stepped around two Fremantle defenders and dished a handball off for a goal to Leigh Montagna – still playing for the team this year – the Saints were a point behind with 37 seconds left.
By the time the ball had drifted back into the St Kilda forward line, the time clock had ticked down.
But the siren was all but mute to the only people that counted – controlling umpire Matthew Nicholls – among the 15,282 witnessing one of the game’s most controversial endings ever.
“The ground was erupting at the time,” Baker recollects.
“I am not sure how loud the siren was but you just couldn’t hear yourself think.
“I really don’t think any player heard it.”
Seconds later from the recommencement, with Dockers players all out of position, intent on arguing with Nicholls, Baker was on the end of a handball all alone 40 metres out.
He rushed his kick under pressure that swayed around in the wind, like a roulette ball uncertain of its destiny, for a behind.
Nicholls then blew his whistle and awarded a second shot, one that Baker admitted he was not up to it.
“I remember having the kick and my legs were like jelly,” Baker says.
“I was that nervous running and my whole body was numb. I knew every person in the stadium had their eyes on me.”
When Nicholls awarded Baker the free kick – let alone allowed him to have his first shot on goal – the Dockers coach lost it, walking onto the ground after he believed the game was over.
“Some out there had heard it, some hadn’t,” a convinced Connolly says.
“I sensed the umpire in the middle of the ground had heard it.”
Minutes earlier amid the relative comfort of the coaches box, Connolly observed the clock ticking down and from behind the glass heard a siren.
He turned to his assistant coaches for a job well done, stood up, looked over his left shoulder and shockingly found the game continuing.
“The majority of our bench and a lot of our people in the coaches box was on the ground by then, trying to say the umpire he got it wrong,” Connolly says.
Fortunately, for Fremantle, calmer heads in the aftermath of the incident prevailed.
Three days later, the AFL reversed the result from a draw to a Dockers win and the four premiership points.
After 12 seasons, the 16th club entered in the AFL would later reach its first finals campaign, and that result at Aurora Stadium thrust them into the top four.
“The thing people have to realise too, if Steven Baker had kicked that goal and they got those four points, St Kilda would have ended up in the top four at the end of the season and we wouldn’t,” Connolly says.
“St Kilda ended up fifth or sixth and were knocked out in the first final and (coach) Grant Thomas was then sacked.”
Aurora Stadium ground manager Robert Groenewegen was used to pressure during his 79-game VFL career with Footscray from 1978-86. But nothing like this moments after all bedlam broke out.
“For me, there was a bit of panic,” he says.
“Was there something wrong with the siren? And all the things associated with the reputation of the ground.”
What Groenewegen explains today was that before the venue had a PA system to sound the siren, ground officials used to put speakers on a crane on the other side of the ground from the timekeepers.
The problem was its latest PA at the time hadn’t installed speakers to amplify the siren sound.
“The siren was just a horn and the horn was never that loud,” Groenewegen says.
Groenewegen was lodged in the operations box, a fair way away from the timekeepers in the old Northern stand and 10 years on is still unsure if he heard the siren.
“The timing of the umpire putting his arm up to signal he was going to bounce the ball and the timekeepers thinking it was him acknowledging the siren was a real comedy of errors,” Groenewegen says.
Add to the fact a second umpire ran 100 metres down the field to Nicholls, hand on his ear conferring with timekeepers and there was no one further confused than the one man who knew the ground.
“In hindsight now, I can look back and think that was something happened, it was part of the learning curve for us as venue operators,” Groenewegen says.
I am not sure how loud the siren was, but you just couldn’t hear yourself think.
- St Kilda's Steven Baker