Channel 7 AFL experts have slammed Melbourne superstar Christian Petracca as “disrespectful” for opting to miss the club’s best and fairest night.
It emerged this week that Petracca will skip the awards night to head overseas and attend a training camp in Austria.
WATCH THE VIDEO ABOVE: Petracca missing the B&F a ‘bad look’.
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The 28-year-old appeared in a club video explaining his decision, which was the first time he has spoken since reports circulated he was disgruntled with the club and wanted out.
“We’ll head off overseas, Bella and I, for a little bit,” Petracca said.
“Obviously I’ll do the Red Bull training camp again.
“I’ve done that the last three years and for me it’s just been the most amazing experience being able to use their facilities and have access to some of the best high performance people in the world.
“For me, it will be awesome, especially with my injury, being able to recover there, rehab that, and I think, as I said before, probably from a mental point of view, getting back to that confidence in myself and in my body and again ready to attack day one of the pre-season.”
But Petracca’s move did not go down well with Brownlow medallist Adam Cooney, who said it was “disrespectful”.
“Big deal, really big deal. Back in my day, I am talking like an old dinosaur, you would have to be on your deathbed or someone else would be to actually get out of going to the best and fairest,” he said on Armchair Experts.
“There really is no excuse for missing a club best and fairest.
“Christian Petracca is in a situation … I don’t know why, why would you even bother doing that. You have so much time in the off-season to do your training camps and go overseas and prep yourself. He will have another 10 weeks after to do this.
“We know what he has been through. It is a bad look, it gets people talking, and it looks disrespectful from him to the club.”
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AFLW great Kate McCarthy agreed, adding that that decision just reignited all the negative talk around Petracca and his relationship with the club.
“The other thing is that it is for the fans, the sponsors and for the people who have helped out a lot of the other side of your football club,” she said.
“Most of those people, their favourite Melbourne player would be Christian Petracca, prior to a lot of the stuff that has gone on. I know there has been some things that have been said by fans and things like that that potentially they have changed their opinion.
“But given what has just happened as well, I think Adam is talking from the perspective that ‘this is no matter what has happened’ but the last sort of 6-8 weeks has been pretty damning. There has been a lot of things said and a lot of people are coming out saying different things about Christian.
“For him to not go to the best and fairest, it was something that created more talk about something that had kind of been resolved, as much as they wanted it to be.
“And now it has reignited this chat around him at the club. I don’t think it was what they needed. He easily could have gone to it and gone on his training camp a week later or a couple of days later.”
McCarthy went on to explain how she even fronted up to her club best and fairest night despite already announcing she would be leaving the club.
“If I was going to back out of anything it would have never been at the B&F, you front up, it’s the mates that you have played football with and it is celebrating the year that you have been through. It just looks awful for me that he is not going to that,” she said.
Cooney added: “The only time that my teammates have not been to the best and fairest is when they have left the club or there have been trade talks happening that they knew they were going to go. Read into that what you will.”
Petracca has struggled with his mental health since suffering a traumatic injury when he copped an errant knee in Melbourne’s clash with Collingwood on King’s Birthday.
In addition to the lacerated spleen, he suffered four broken ribs and a punctured lung, and spent nearly a week in ICU after undergoing emergency surgery.
Later, reports circulated that he wanted to be traded to a Victorian rival.
But at the end of August, the club released a statement that had quotes from Petracca, saying “I make no apologies for wanting to better our club and contribute to our success both on and off the field”.
The statement also said that Petracca remained “committed to playing for the red and blue”.