During the second quarter of the enthralling battle between the Sydney Swans and the Western Bulldogs at the SCG, a strange moment caught commentators and spectators alike by surprise.
As the Swans were starting their fightback following an impressive opening term by the Bulldogs, something flashed on TV screens around the country, and eagle-eyed Channel 7 commentator Hamish McLachlan was quick to pick it up.
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McLachlan suddenly interrupted the commentary.
He turned to AFLW legend Daisy Pearce and asked, “Dais, did I just see a flying boot?”
Pearce responded: “I was about to apologise to Al (commentator Alister Nicholson) if he was talking to me, because I was trying to work out where the flying boot came from.”
McLachlan suddenly pieced the mystery together.
“It’s Mills’s boot,” he deducted.
“That’s a runner throwing it back into the centre square.”
Pearce said: “I thought it had fallen out of the sky,” while Nicholson said: “It’s raining boots at the SCG.”
McLachlan chipped it in: “(Well), I thought it had been.”
GWS defender Phil Davis, who had joined the Seven team in the commentary box, recalled a moment when a player threw a rival’s boot away.
“(He) got a fine?” Davis said. “That runner will probably get credit.”
Nicholson said former NRL player James Maloney was “notorious” for throwing boots.
“He would throw boots left, right and centre into the stands,” Nicholson said.
Pearce said it gave you an insight into the mind of the runner, who was probably “scared” to run on the ground in case he gave away a free kick.
They probably don’t want to walk out there and “hand it to the player”, Pearce said.
Later McLachlan described it as: “Flying boots lobbed in like grenades.”
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