IT IS pitched as the great disaster of 1989, the worst-case scenario for representative football.

Tony Hall's hacking-down in a tackle by his Hawthorn teammate Andy Collins in the Victoria-South Australia match at the MCG that year left Hall needing a reconstruction of his right knee and Collins decimated.

But the way of sport is to move on, and they did.

Collins visited Hall in hospital and they agreed it had been dreadfully bad luck.

Hall threw himself into rehabilitation. Hawthorn won the flag, its second in a row, though Hall was still recovering.

The South Australian was up and running and well enough to play in another premiership for Hawthorn in 1991, before moving back to Adelaide to complete a fine career with the Crows. By consensus, he was never quite the brilliant player he had been, but nor was he anybody's idea of a hack.

He and Collins grew tired of talking about the incident, for both were decorated players with many triumphs worth raising.

Hall, who did not return calls this week, lives in Melbourne and works in the medical insurance industry. Collins coaches West Adelaide in the SANFL.

"It happened pretty quickly," said Craig Bradley, who was playing for South Australia that day. "We didn't realise till afterward how serious it was."

In any case, Bradley and his teammates thought it a mere occupational hazard.

"Back then, it was like state-of-origin rugby league. It was accepted as the highest level of footy, the same as the Gaelic series.

"It was an honour and if you got injured, it doesn't help your club, but you wouldn't knock back the opportunity. It comes with the territory, doesn't it?"

Risk of injury is ever-present in representative football, just as it is at club level, yet there are only a handful of bad stories to emerge over the years.

Hall's is arguably the worst, but one significant tale involves "Fabulous" Phil Carman, whose injury in a game for Victoria against Western Australia at Waverley Park probably cost him the 1975 Brownlow Medal.

Carman contested a ball with his opponent just before half-time and had his foot trampled on.

"I hobbled off the ground and it was right on half-time," he said this week.

"It wouldn't happen today. The doctor said, 'You'll need an X-ray for this'.

"When half-time finished, everybody left, including all the medical staff. Nobody stayed with me.

"Fortunately for me, a couple of Collingwood supporters came in to the rooms to see how I was and they drove me to the hospital.

"Imagine if that happened to Buddy Franklin or Jonathan Brown or someone like that!"

Carman's foot was broken, and he missed nine matches. On Brownlow Medal night, he polled 17 votes, just three behind Gary Dempsey's winning total. Not only that, he won the Copeland Trophy for Collingwood's best and fairest anyway.

"You never know what could have been," he said this week. "I might have been a nice bloke after all."

Carman represented South Australian half a dozen times in the days before Collingwood lured him across the border, and always loved state footy.

"It was never a problem for me," he said.

"Most of the guys who played said it was so enjoyable to play with the best players around the country.

"I'm disappointed that some of the blokes don't want to do it (now) but I think a lot of them do want to participate now, which is good."