Dave Hughes has always been good at taking hits on stage – hecklers, bad reviews, the occasional awkward silence – but nothing prepared him for the bone-crunching brutality of an AFL Legends clash under the roof of Marvel Stadium.
The 54-year-old funnyman ran out for the Victorian squad on Thursday night but by Friday morning found himself in Cabrini Hospital’s ICU with five broken ribs and a punctured lung. In other words, the scoreboard now reads: AFL Legends 1, Hughesy 0.
Hughesy’s horror night began with a collision from former West Coast Eagle Andrew Embley after Hughes committed the unforgivable sin of dropping a chest mark, which he blamed on Marvel Stadium’s “excessive lighting situation”. From there, things went downhill faster than a Fremantle season.
“I thought I had a punctured lung at halftime – turns out I was right,” Hughesy told Triple M, proving that even in agony, he remains the most brutally honest man in comedy.
Unfortunately, the carnage didn’t stop there. Daniel Gorringe monstered him in the ruck contest, and then Mitch Robinson politely shoved him into the Marvel Stadium turf in the kind of sequence that would have made even WWE promoters say, “Bit much, lads.”
“I thought, ‘Am I going to die out here?’” Hughes recalled. “And the crowd wanted me to go back on! If I’d listened, they would’ve got their wish.”
As if that wasn’t enough, Hughes then spotted TV footage of Shane Crawford apparently rallying the troops with the instruction, “Everyone has to hurt this guy!” – a game plan Hughes described as “really unfair” but also, probably, very effective.
Despite the busted ribs and the small matter of struggling to breathe, Hughes somehow managed to kick a goal and even joined in the post-match celebrations, proving that comedians really do suffer for their art, and occasionally for their sport.
Now holed up in Cabrini with more fractures than punchlines, Hughes joked about his recovery timeline: “I don’t know … I may never leave hospital.”
But if there’s one thing certain in life, it’s that Hughesy will. Because not even a punctured lung can keep him from the microphone for too long.
Images: Instagram
