Sam Newman has dinner with a friend at Italian restaurant in Melbourne

Sam Newman headed out to a quiet dinner in Melbourne on Sunday, after his wife Amanda Brown died suddenly last week. 

The footy legend, 74, appeared downcast as he had a meal with a friend at an Italian restaurant. 

The pair chatted quietly, with Sam eating a slice of pizza and seeming lost in thought at times. 

Following the meal, he politely posed for selfies with football fans, who were kitted out in team colours, managing a smile as he took photos with a young fan. 

Sam was dressed casually in a grey polo shirt and black pants, and even managed a smile as he interacted with the fans.  

The sighting comes after Sam described the tragic final moments of his wife’s life, explaining how he performed CPR on a deceased Amanda for 20 minutes before she was pronounced dead.  

On Wednesday, he spoke at length about his heartache at losing his partner of almost two decades, whom he only married late last year.

‘I get home and I walk in the door and the television’s on in the bedroom. So I look down there and lying in her underwear – she’d obviously been in bed or she got out of bed to get something to eat,’ Sam said.  

‘She’s lying there on the tiles outside the laundry and as soon as I saw her I knew she was dead, I just knew it.

‘I rang 000 and the very helpful person said you better try and give CPR and she talked me through that.

‘I’ve got the phone on speaker and I’m pumping this poor woman who’s lying there looking so peaceful, obviously dead, but the operator said keep doing it in case there’s a spark of life in her, I think she said.’  

‘So for 20 minutes I’m giving CPR to what I knew was a corpse,’ he added.

Detailing the heartbreaking days since his wife died, Sam explained how he unexpectedly crawled into her side of the bed in an effort to be close to her.

‘When I got home after the coroner and the police had been and the ambulance, I got into bed,’ he said.  

‘Now here’s the interesting thing… I sleep on the left-hand side of the bed and my partner Amanda sleeps on the right-hand side.

‘And when I got in after the ambulance had been and the police and the coroner, I didn’t think about this, I just instinctively got into her side of the bed. I was lying there for about half an hour and I thought, “What am I doing on this side of the bed?”

‘I tried to go to sleep. The coroner left at about one in the morning and at about half-past two I thought I’d have a crack at going to sleep, and of course I couldn’t.’   

An emotional Sam said he wanted to speak about losing his wife, whom he married last November after a 20-year relationship, but was unsure if they would ever actually release the podcast.

‘I want to do this,’ he said.  ‘I’ve had a pretty tough week so before I start, I don’t want anyone listening to this to feel sorry for me.’

A humble Sam said there were plenty of other people in the community who had suffered greater adversity than him. 

‘I’m not singling myself out for sympathy or anything like that,’ he said.

Speaking to his mate and former AFL legend Don Scott, Sam said he had been overwhelmed by the support he had received over the past few days.