Former AFL coach Mick Malthouse, 72, sustained a minor chest stab wound from a screwdriver while repelling three alleged home intruders at his penthouse apartment. The incident unfolded on September 4, 2025, when Malthouse, armed with a piece of weightlifting equipment and dressed in pyjamas, confronted the suspects.

Court Testimony on the Confrontation

Victoria Police Detective Tyler Sherlock detailed the events in court. Joshua Di Cello, 36, allegedly stole a key fob from a construction company working on Malthouse’s apartment complex on September 1, 2025. The trio—Andrew Carroll, 50, Aysar Mashu, 38, and Di Cello—accessed an internal stairwell to target Malthouse’s penthouse.

Malthouse heard noises at his front door and confronted the men, who wielded a jimmy bar. He swung an exercise pole at them, forcing a retreat to the basement. As they attempted to escape through another door, Malthouse pursued. Carroll raised his jimmy bar, but Malthouse struck him in the head, causing him to drop it. Mashu then stabbed Malthouse in the chest with a screwdriver, resulting in minor injuries without organ damage.

CCTV footage captured Carroll an hour later with a significant welt under his left eye. Malthouse told police: “I managed to crack one of them with the exercise bar. I whacked him twice.”

Accused’s Background and Bail Hearing

Police link Di Cello to multiple property and car thefts from August to September 2025, including jewellery shops, offices, and a Dandenong South site where $60,000 in boxed children’s toys vanished. Di Cello’s lawyer, Nadia Giogianni, sought bail for drug rehabilitation, citing his intellectual disability and vulnerability. Detective Sherlock opposed it, calling Di Cello a “persistent, prolific thief” with a long criminal history. A magistrate denied the application.

The accused have yet to enter pleas regarding the alleged break-in.

Malthouse Recounts the Ordeal

Malthouse and his wife were in bed when the intruders approached. “There were three blokes on the other side [of the door] with a bit of weaponry,” he said. “I was able to get through and force them down the stairs. There was a fair bit of action. One tried to stab me [with a screwdriver] and only partially succeeded.”

Following the attack, Malthouse criticized Melbourne’s rising crime rates: “I think people are just sick to death of it. We shouldn’t be subjected to this but it just seems to be more and more, unfortunately. Police are under more and more pressure and we seem to have laws [that], to my mind, do not satisfy the public under any circumstances.”

Malthouse’s Storied AFL Career

A three-time premiership coach, Malthouse led West Coast to flags in 1992 and 1994, and Collingwood in 2010. He holds the record for most AFL games coached at 718. As a player, he appeared in 174 matches for St Kilda and Richmond from 1972 to 1983, securing a 1980 premiership with the Tigers.