Shane Ellen (born 1 January 1973) is a former

Australian rules football Australian football, also called Australian rules football or Aussie rules, or more simply football or footy, is a contact sport played between two teams of 18 players on an oval field, often a modified cricket ground. Points are scored by k ...

er who played in the

Australian Football League The Australian Football League (AFL) is the only fully professional competition of Australian rules football. Through the AFL Commission, the AFL also serves as the sport's governing body and is responsible for controlling the laws of the gam ...

(AFL).

Bulldogs career

Ellen, a Footscray local, made his debut with the

Bulldogs The Bulldog is a British breed of dog of mastiff type. It may also be known as the English Bulldog or British Bulldog. It is of medium size, a muscular, hefty dog with a wrinkled face and a distinctive pushed-in nose.Adelaide Football Club The Adelaide Crows (officially the Adelaide Football Club) are a professional Australian rules football team based in Adelaide, South Australia. Founded in 1990. The Crows has fielded a men's team in the Australian Football League (AFL) since ...

in the 1996 Pre-season Draft.

Adelaide career

He arrived at the Crows in

1996 File:1996 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: A Centennial Olympic Park bombing, bomb explodes at Centennial Olympic Park in Atlanta, set off by a radical Anti-abortion violence, anti-abortionist; The center fuel tank explodes on TWA Flight 8 ...

and was a largely unheralded player. That was until the

1997 AFL Grand Final The 1997 AFL Grand Final was an Australian rules football game contested between the Adelaide Football Club and the St Kilda Football Club, held at the Melbourne Cricket Ground in Melbourne on 27 September 1997. It was the 101st annual gran ...

against St Kilda. This proved to be a defining moment in his career, until the journeyman's AFL career ended at the end of

2000 File:2000 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: Protests against Bush v. Gore after the 2000 United States presidential election; Heads of state meet for the Millennium Summit; The International Space Station in its infant form as seen from ...

, after 54 games and 15 goals with the club.

1997 Grand Final

In the 1997 Grand Final, Ellen was considered the unlikely hero for the Crows. In the first half he booted two goals from full-forward, playing there in place of the injured Tony Modra. He was then switched to the

half-back line In the sport of Australian rules football, the half-back line refers to the positions of the 3 players on the field that occupy the centre half-back and left and right half-back flank positions. Centre half-back The role of the centre half-back ...

by coach

Malcolm Blight Malcolm Jack Blight AM (born 16 February 1950) is a former Australian rules footballer who played for and coached the North Melbourne Football Club in the Victorian Football League (VFL) and Woodville Football Club in the South Australian Nati ...

, which proved to be an inspired move – Ellen kicked three of his five goals for the match after half-time. This amazing performance was accentuated by the fact he had kicked just three goals in his previous 38 AFL matches. After the 1997 Grand Final, he kicked eight more goals for the remainder of his career.

Statistics

:Shane Ellen's player profile at AFL Tables
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1993 File:1993 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The Oslo I Accord is signed in an attempt to resolve the Israeli–Palestinian conflict; The Russian White House is shelled during the 1993 Russian constitutional crisis; Czechoslovakia is peace ...

, style="text-align:center;", , 47 , , 4 , , 0 , , 1 , , 22 , , 9 , , 31 , , 6 , , 2 , , 0.0 , , 0.3 , , 5.5 , , 2.3 , , 7.8 , , 1.5 , , 0.5 , - ! scope="row" style="text-align:center" ,

1994 File:1994 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The 1994 Winter Olympics are held in Lillehammer, Norway; The Kaiser Permanente building after the 1994 Northridge earthquake; A model of the MS Estonia, which Sinking of the MS Estonia, sank in ...

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1995 File:1995 Events Collage V2.png, From left, clockwise: O.J. Simpson is O. J. Simpson murder case, acquitted of the murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman from the 1994, year prior in "The Trial of the Century" in the United States; The ...

, style="text-align:center;", , 20 , , 7 , , 1 , , 2 , , 36 , , 7 , , 43 , , 8 , , 3 , , 0.1 , , 0.3 , , 5.1 , , 1.0 , , 6.1 , , 1.1 , , 0.4 , - ! scope="row" style="text-align:center" ,

, style="text-align:center;", , 13 , , 17 , , 2 , , 1 , , 128 , , 78 , , 206 , , 55 , , 17 , , 0.1 , , 0.1 , , 7.5 , , 4.6 , , 12.1 , , 3.2 , , 1.0 , - style="background-color: #EAEAEA" ! scope="row" style="text-align:center;" ,

1997 File:1997 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The movie set of ''Titanic'', the highest-grossing movie in history at the time; ''Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone'', is published; Comet Hale-Bopp passes by Earth and becomes one of t ...

, style="text-align:center;", , 13 , , 10 , , 5 , , 2 , , 70 , , 45 , , 115 , , 39 , , 14 , , 0.5 , , 0.2 , , 7.0 , , 4.5 , , 11.5 , , 3.9 , , 1.4 , - ! scope="row" style="text-align:center;" ,

1998 1998 was designated as the ''International Year of the Ocean''. Events January * January 6 – The '' Lunar Prospector'' spacecraft is launched into orbit around the Moon, and later finds evidence for frozen water, in soil in permanently ...

, style="text-align:center;", , 13 , , 17 , , 7 , , 9 , , 122 , , 46 , , 168 , , 45 , , 21 , , 0.4 , , 0.5 , , 7.2 , , 2.7 , , 9.9 , , 2.6 , , 1.2 , - style="background-color: #EAEAEA" ! scope="row" style="text-align:center" ,

1999 File:1999 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The funeral procession of King Hussein of Jordan in Amman; the 1999 İzmit earthquake kills over 17,000 people in Turkey; the Columbine High School massacre, one of the first major school shootin ...

, style="text-align:center;", , 13 , , 6 , , 1 , , 1 , , 22 , , 10 , , 32 , , 11 , , 2 , , 0.2 , , 0.2 , , 3.7 , , 1.7 , , 5.3 , , 1.8 , , 0.3 , - ! scope="row" style="text-align:center" ,

, style="text-align:center;", , 13 , , 4 , , 0 , , 3 , , 28 , , 5 , , 33 , , 13 , , 1 , , 0.0 , , 0.8 , , 7.0 , , 1.3 , , 8.3 , , 3.3 , , 0.3 , - class="sortbottom" ! colspan=3, Career ! 65 ! 16 ! 19 ! 428 ! 200 ! 628 ! 177 ! 60 ! 0.2 ! 0.3 ! 6.6 ! 3.1 ! 9.7 ! 2.7 ! 0.9

References

Adelaide Football Club players Adelaide Football Club premiership players Western Bulldogs players Melton Football Club players Coburg Football Club players Australian rules footballers from Victoria (state) 1973 births Living people VFL/AFL premiership players {{AFL-bio-1970s-stub