Time and fatherhood doesn’t appear to have changed big bad Barry Hall, with footage emerging of the former AFL champion striking two opponents in a local footy match.
The Sydney Swans premiership winner lashed out at two opposition players during a grand final on the Gold Coast.
The 40-year-old can be seen punching one man to the ground, before hitting another who confronts the full forward over his conduct.
The punch was reminiscent of his controversial hit on West Coast’s Brent Staker in 2008 that saw him suspended for seven games.
Hall has said that the birth of his first child, a boy named Miller, earlier this year has changed him.
Time and fatherhood doesn’t appear to have changed big bad Barry Hall, with footage emerging of the former AFL champion striking two opponents in a local footy match
The punch was reminiscent of his controversial hit on West Coast’s Brent Staker in 2008 that saw him suspended for seven games
Hall has said that the birth of his first child, a boy named Miller, earlier this year has changed him
Hall was playing for Labrador in a local Queensland grand final match against Palm-Beach Currumbin on the weekend.
The former Saint, Swan and Bulldog was tackled in a jarring hit that knocked the ball free by an opponent, before retaliating to the clean hit with a vicious left hook.
Another opposition player then approaches Hall over the punch, before copping similar treatment and falling violently to the ground.
Players from both teams then rush in, with the 2005 premiership winner continuing to smirk and taunt Palm Beach-Currumbin players.
He then cups his hands to his ears and walks towards another player, before being pushed away from the fracas.
Hall was initially handed a two-game ban for the incident by the Queensland AFL, but had that reduced to one game after pleading guilty to striking.
His career was littered with suspensions ranging from striking to rough conduct, but his most infamous moment was the blind shot on Staker that left him unconscious.
Hall was jostling with Staker and, after not receiving a free kick, lashed out and struck the defender
The Swans and Eagles held the most bitter rivalry in the sport through the mid-to-late 00s, playing against each other in back to back grand finals in 2005 and 2006.
Hall was jostling with Staker and, after not receiving a free kick, lashed out and struck the defender.
‘If I could take it back I certainly would. I apologised on the phone to you but if I could take it back I certainly would, a thousand times over,’ Hall said of the incident earlier this year.
He also says the birth of his first son to entertainer Lauren Brant has changed him and that he now judges his violent past from the perspective as a parent.
‘One thing that has overcome me is how protective I am of my little boy … It takes me to how Brent’s parents would have felt,’ Hall said.