2024 Player Reviews: #5 Christian Petracca

[Demonland 71,868]

Melbourne’s most important player who dominated the first half of the season until his untimely injury in the Kings Birthday clash put an end to his season. At the time, he was on his way to many personal honours and the club in strong finals contention. When the season did end for Melbourne and Petracca was slowly recovering, he was engulfed in controversy about a possible move of clubs amid claims about his treatment by the club in the immediate aftermath of his injury.

Date of Birth: 4 January 1996
Height: 187cm

Games MFC 2024: 13
Career Total: 189

Goals MFC 2024: 14
Career Total: 184

Brownlow Medal Votes: 16

[Whispering_Jack 29,928]

Probably an impossible ask but it would be nice if club politics was kept to a minimum and we could discuss the attributes this champion footballer when he picked up those 16 Brownlow votes in 2024 and what he can bring into the mix for the Demons of 2025 and beyond.

[Roost it far 8,225]

The Brand is setting himself up like a true professional. Big preseason leading from the front. He’ll have another fantastic year. A must keep but if he leaves we welcome 2 top 10 picks and we go again. I think he’ll stay. 

[biggestred 5,071]

First half of the season was incredible.

Hopefully he can get back to that after his 3 month enforced lay off

[John Crow Batty 8,863]

Despite all the dramas and intrigue surrounding him he still played around his best consistently which is always of a high standard. Does anyone one remember him ever playing a dog of a game? I hope his serious injury and politics wont affect his game for next season.

Edited November 2 by John Crow Batty

[DemonWheels 1,055]

Assume all of us as supporters are probably feeling like the dumb boyfriend whose done something wrong but can’t quite figure out what it was we did and exactly how to mend that bridge but just hope to hell their love and feelings for us (as well as their contract) entice / coerce / motivate Christian to stay and continue to see a future together. 

 

Hope the understanding between the club and Christian are much clearer, clarified and understood - or we’ll only see him in red and blue for one more season.

[DeeZone 9,798]

Agree DemonWheels, he is so important to our club, our hopes and us supporters, having fallen out of love with us we have to hope like mad it’s not terminal. I am hoping that when Christian gets back to the club and is surrounded by his team mates and coaching team that we can rekindle the love affair with the MFC.

[Chook 15,012]

Lowered his colours this year IMO. Massively lost my respect by the way he has handled himself. 

No one deserves an injury like he got, but that's no excuse to go rogue.

Edited November 3 by Chook

[Sydee 4,406]

8 minutes ago, Chook said:

Lowered his colours this year IMO. Massively lost my respect by the way he has handled himself. 

No one deserves an injury like he got, but that's no excuse to go rogue.

Really 

He was in great form before the KB debacle 

I would prefer not to focus on what happened after that other than to say if things weren’t being managed professionally within the club I’m 100% behind his calling that out and I genuinely hope that we move forward better for some hard conversations and hopefully that includes Trac fully committed to the MFC for the rest of his career 

He is imo our best footballer other than perhaps Max we need him fit firing and 100% focused for the club to be successful in the short to medium term 

[Demon Disciple 12,105]

Was not a fan of how he handled himself at the end of the year. Needs to earn back the trust of the entire club.

[Earl Hood 6,086]

Fingers crossed he can get back to his best after such a devastating injury. It won’t be easy. And I am still peeved that Darsknee Moore was able to get away with such a blatant act of violence with so little scrutiny! 

[BW511 2,667]

Mixed emotions with Trac, proved that he’s all about himself first and the team/club second.

Hope the leaders hold him accountable this year as almost everyone will expect him to walk at the end of the year. 

His year was decent until the injury, nothing more and nothing less

 

[Chook 15,012]

2 hours ago, Sydee said:

Really 

He was in great form before the KB debacle 

I would prefer not to focus on what happened after that other than to say if things weren’t being managed professionally within the club I’m 100% behind his calling that out and I genuinely hope that we move forward better for some hard conversations and hopefully that includes Trac fully committed to the MFC for the rest of his career 

He is imo our best footballer other than perhaps Max we need him fit firing and 100% focused for the club to be successful in the short to medium term 

Time will tell. 2025 is a huge year for the club, and for Petracca.

[58er 6,420]

11 hours ago, Chook said:

Lowered his colours this year IMO. Massively lost my respect by the way he has handled himself. 

No one deserves an injury like he got, but that's no excuse to go rogue.

Understand your comment and truth is that Trac got massively involved in matters that should never have become public. 

I don’t hold any grudges as he is a remarkably pleasant person generally and he was under very strong family pressure from the medical issues. It was also apparent the Club underestimated the seriousness unfortunately.

Great learning  curve for both and Trac is now setting his normal standards for himself that should see him back as our top player along with a revitalised Clarry and much improved culture and team power hopefully like 2021. 

Incremental or Large improvement should come from nearly all players next year considering their age or experience. And coaching improvement also. 

[Bring-Back-Powell 14,813]

We were 7-5 before the Kings B'day, and then 4-7 from Kings Bday (when he went off early) onwards. We also lost 3 games to top 6 sides by a kick without him. You'd suspect a typical 30 possession 1 goal game from Trac would've gotten us over the line in one or two of those games - particularly the Port game where a piece of brilliance in the dying minutes would have gotten us over the line in a low scoring scrap, given Port were having trouble scoring.

On the flipside he was in the team when we put in our two worst performances of the year against the WA sides which proves that he can't do it all on his own when the rest of the side doesn't come to play.

I hope his return automatically makes us a 2 win better side than last year.

 

Edited November 3 by Bring-Back-Powell

[Bay Riffin 1,474]

12 hours ago, BW511 said:

Mixed emotions with Trac, proved that he’s all about himself first and the team/club second.

Hope the leaders hold him accountable this year as almost everyone will expect him to walk at the end of the year. 

His year was decent until the injury, nothing more and nothing less

 

Totally agree. I just have little respect for him now, it does appear very much its about himself first, then team second but the fact he went so publicly and ruined our trade period has serious consequences. 

[whatwhat say what 22,731]

his on-field leadership was incredible in the first half of the year

his off-field leadership in the back half of the year left a lot to be desired

[spirit of norm smith 16,419]

11 minutes ago, whatwhat say what said:

his on-field leadership was incredible in the first half of the year

his off-field leadership in the back half of the year left a lot to be desired

Agree … huge year ahead.  Stay tuned for the 2025 season.  

[BDA 22,737]

Brilliant on field. great professional. He sustained a really bad injury so I hope he can return to his best for us.

needs to find better counsel off field. His solo run to force a trade embarrassed himself and the club. It was never going to happen. I'll forgive him but i won't forget.

That said, Kate and Pert have now left so his grievances have been somewhat vindicated.

 

[Lucifers Hero 39,693]

8 hours ago, Bay Riffin said:

Totally agree. I just have little respect for him now, it does appear very much its about himself first, then team second but the fact he went so publicly and ruined our trade period has serious consequences. 

Firstly, I don't like how he drew attention to club issues but 'ruined our trade period'...?  I assume that refers to Houston as I don't recall any other 'biggish' names linked to us that we missed out on.

Port would have demanded ND#5 or it be a major part of the trade ... they had very little in picks to give back to us or give us a decent player. 

tbh I'd much rather let JT do his thing and get a gun kid with pick 5 than have Houston for 3-4 good years (plus some picks we wouldn't use or a depth player)   

Edited November 4 by Lucifers Hero

[D Rev 629]

On 02/11/2024 at 17:10, Roost it far said:

The Brand is setting himself up like a true professional. Big preseason leading from the front. He’ll have another fantastic year. A must keep but if he leaves we welcome 2 top 10 picks and we go again. I think he’ll stay. 

"The Brand". Me like.

[Purple77 1,001]

His game against Carlton was pretty epic. 

How many players in the league can do that?