AFL star Patrick Dangerfield has revealed the secret he told coach Phil Walsh just hours before he was killed by his son.
The Cats great – who was playing for Walsh’s Adelaide Crows team at the time – revealed to him that he told Walsh he was leaving the club for Geelong the day before he was stabbed to death by his son Cy.
It had been speculated that the gun midfielder would move on when his contract expired at the Crows at the end of 2015.
His move to the Cats came as no surprise, but he confided in Walsh before telling anybody else.
‘The first person I told was Phil Walsh, we had green tea, he was a very big tea man, we caught up, it was a Thursday afternoon,’ Dangerfield told Channel Seven.
‘I told him and he said that he would keep it to himself and I felt like I could believe him, he was that sort of guy.
‘Ten hours later, David Noble (Crows head of footy) was at the door at 5.30am.’
That’s when Dangerfield received the news that his coach was gone in the most tragic of circumstances.
Patrick Dangerfield (right) is pictured with his then-coach at the Adelaide Crows, Phil Walsh

The AFL world was rocked by Phil Walsh’s death in 2015. Just 10 hours before he passed away, Dangerfield trusted him with his biggest secret
‘It was a strange moment in time when you tell the coach and he’s not with us the next day,’ he said.
‘I got the front door, nothing good happens at 5.30am, (Noble) said, “Pack your stuff and come in, Phil’s dead”.
‘It’s almost easier to talk to because it still doesn’t seem real, like it was just out of a movie.’
Walsh died from multiple stab wounds after a domestic dispute at his Somerton Park home in the early hours of July 3.
His son, 26-year-old Cy, was charged with murder.
Cy was later found not guilty of murder by reason of mental incompetence, with a judge determining that he had been suffering a psychotic episode as a result of undiagnosed schizophrenia.
Dangerfield said the week after Walsh’s death was one of the toughest he’d ever experienced.
‘It was extremely difficult on everyone in the building because we’d had a couple of down years and we were playing some really good footy and there was some solid direction,’ he said.

Cy Walsh pictured top with his father Phil, left) was sentenced after the stabbing that left the AFL world shocked to its core
‘He was ruthless in terms the way of he coached and communicated but he was also a father figure in the way he explained things.’
After Walsh’s death the scheduled game against Geelong was cancelled before the Crows headed to Perth to play West Coast, where Walsh was an assistant coach before returning to Adelaide.
‘We split the points with the Cats and then we went over to West Coast the following week and that week it was just like the emotional release after that game was enormous,’ Dangerfield said.
‘It wasn’t closure by any means, but the end of that game and locking arms with the West Coast players… that was a pretty interesting time.
‘We experienced so much in life together, unfortunately we experienced something that no one should have to deal with, but we did and we only had each other.’
As a player, Walsh featured in 122 VFL/AFL games for Richmond, Collingwood and Brisbane from 1983-1990.
When Adelaide sacked Brenton Sanderson as coach in September 2014, the Crows powerbroker and playing great Mark Ricciuto sought out Walsh.
‘I feel like I have been robbed,’ Ricciuto wrote in an open letter published five days after Walsh’s death.
It was reported in November 2024 that Cy had been granted supervised day leave under a new detention regime.