Lion jumps on Matthew Lloyd

While on Safari yesterday in South Africa with the Australian Institute of Sport-AFL Academy, former Essendon champion Matthew Lloyd got up close and personal with a lion cub.

After the cubs had eaten, despite not wanting to go near them, Matthew Lloyd was encouraged to go closer to them, in order to take a photo in pretty much a once in lifetime opportunity, and so he did.

Whilst bending down to get closer to one of the lions he felt something on his back and thought to himself that someone was playing a joke on him, but then when he turned his head he realized it wasn’t human. There was one of the 80kg lion cubs on his back and no matter how he moved the cub wouldn’t let go.

Luckily for Lloyd he only came out of the cage with some scratches and some teasing.. Former Brisbane Lions football manager, Gubby Allan said to Lloyd “that’s not the first time you’ve been mauled by Lions. We destroyed you back in 2001!”

Unfortunately this incident wasn’t caught on camera, because everyone was obviously in shock and just wanted to escape from the cage.

Tags: Matthew Lloyd

Christine Cladakis

Christine is one of the original members of the ContestedFooty team. Like Vish it's a shame she barracks for Collingwood but 'Cladi' does a good job of keeping both eyes open.

Christine has written 416 articles for ContestedFooty