AFL grand final: Christian Petracca wins Norm Smith Medal and soars towards footy’s pantheon
Christian Petracca wanted to look back on the grand final with no regrets, it’s why he allowed himself to smile as the Demons took a convincing lead. It irked a teammate.
AFL News
Don't miss out on the headlines from AFL News. Followed categories will be added to My News.
Hours before playing the game of his life, Christian Petracca is practising his kicking.
Melbourne is at Perth Stadium for a team walk on Saturday, taking in the surroundings of where the club will later end its 57-year premiership drought, and there is Petracca, having set shots and working on his ball grip.
The star midfielder is not only putting in the extra effort because he is preparing for his first grand final.
Petracca has caught up with midfield coach Adem Yze on some days off this season, wanting to improve his kicking.
Kayo is your ticket to the best local and international sport streaming Live & On-Demand. New to Kayo? Start Your Free Trial >
The 25-year-old felt like he was a reasonable set shot, but he wanted a bit more dexterity with his feet around the ground.
So they practise different types of kicks and work on his grip, which is similar to how he would handle a basketball – his other main sporting love.
“It was really casual (catch-ups), but it shows he puts in a lot of effort in his game,” Yze tells. News Corp.
“He puts a lot of pressure on himself.
“We went for a walk this morning around the ground and he was doing some set shots and just working on his grip.
“He gets rewarded for his hard work.”
On Saturday night, the pay off for his efforts was a maiden premiership and a Norm Smith Medal win.
Melbourne had not snared a flag since Smith was its coach in 1964 and no player from the club had claimed the grand final award named in his honour.
Smith is a Demons legend as a 10-time premiership winner: six as a coach, four as a player.
Petracca only has one flag but, after collecting an equal grand final-record 39 disposals and kicking two brilliant goals on Saturday night, he will long be remembered for his role in helping end the club’s drought.
“He’ll go down in folklore,” Melbourne great Garry Lyon told News Corp.
“He’s going to be one of the all-timers.”
Petracca’s rise from potential to bona fide star was cemented last year when he finished equal-third in the Brownlow Medal and captured his first best and fairest.
This season, he received another award as the standout player on Anzac Day eve.
“He obviously had a terrific year last year and he just understood that talent was one thing and workrate was another,” Yze says.
“Adding those two things together, he got a real good understanding of how hard he needed to train to become a superstar of this comp.
“He then tried to emulate that at the start of the year with the way he prepared and he did the same.
“He’ll keep improving for the next four or five years.”
Housemate Charlie Spargo adds: “You can see in the last couple of years he’s clearly made a shift with his professionalism and his maturity, and he’s gone to another level”.
Petracca also cites off-field changes for his on-field improvement.
“I’ve just got a great balance of knowing who I am, why I want to play footy, my purpose,” Petracca says.
That balance comes from things like his love of sneakers, basketball and his family.
Petracca’s first post-game phone call was to his girlfriend Bella, whom he said provided amazing support.
Then to his parents, Tony and Elvira, back in Victoria.
“They’re bitterly disappointed they can’t be here but they’re super proud of myself and the footy club,” Petracca says.
“It’s been a long journey and they’ve been on this journey since I got drafted.
“There were a few tears from myself, a few tears from everyone.”
The emotion typically associated with Petracca is happiness.
Teammate Harry Petty describes him as a social person who loves making everyone smile.
“He’s the loudest bloke and funniest bloke at the club – it’s just his personality,” Petty tells
News Corp.
Spargo says Petracca is a fun, big kid who is also extremely humble.
Yze calls him one of the easiest players to coach and someone with a heart of gold.
“It’s not just about him,” he says.
“He works hard on his game but he’s trying to bring others with him.
“Tom Sparrow and James Jordon, they look up to him and he puts a lot of time and effort into them and he’d feel pretty proud the way they’re playing.
“He’s a terrific leader for the footy club.”
Petracca lifts people around him with his care and enthusiasm as well as with his on-field acts.
When he kicked his mercurial, dribbling right-foot goal from the pocket in the third quarter to put his side 12 points ahead, Yze could see Demons players energised from it.
Yze and Petracca do not tend to practise those during their catch-ups.
Even still, the midfield coach knew the one on Saturday night was going through.
“He’s actually very good at those kicks – I’d nearly back him in to do that more than a set shot 40 metres out,” the 271-game ex-Demons star says with a laugh.
“He’s a big-game player.
“When the game’s in the balance, he wants the ball in his hands.
“Our midfield today were terrific and he was just the cream on the top.”
Although he worked extremely hard before and throughout the game, Petracca allowed himself to enjoy it, particularly when the Demons began to push clear during a one-sided last quarter.
“(During the last quarter) Maysy (Steven May) kept yelling at me for smiling, saying effing focus,” he says.
“I said ‘we’re up, just smile a bit’.
“I didn’t want to look back at this week win or lose and say I was a nervous wreck.
“I wanted to absolutely enjoy this week and have fun with the people I love being around.”
Bont snubbed as perfect Petracca sweeps Norm Smith
It takes a special kind of dribble kick to impress Jason Dunstall.
The champion Hawthorn goal kicker has bagged them for years, believing players use them too often, usually when a standard drop punt is the better option.
But even he had to tip his hat when Christian Petracca seized the moment in Saturday night’s grand final.
Drifting out the back of the play, near the boundary line at the eastern end of the ground, the 25-year-old dribbled the footy with his right foot along the Perth Stadium turf and through for a crucial major.
SCROLL DOWN TO SEE FULL NORM SMITH VOTES
Last year Dustin Martin’s trademark ‘don’t argue’ helped him clinch the Norm Smith Medal.
In Perth on Saturday night, Petracca’s worm-burning effort.
It was the Demons’ fifth goal in a row, putting them 12 points ahead after the Bulldogs had been three majors in front early in the third term.
“That’s big,” Dunstall said of Petracca’s stunning kick on Triple M.
“There’s a time and a place for that and that was the time and place.
“That was brilliant.
“He’s a star.”
CHRISTIAN PETRACCA ARE YOU ACTUALLY KIDDING????
— AFL (@AFL) September 25, 2021
Can't be doing that in the #AFLGFpic.twitter.com/35GAXJ7snk
Petracca finished the game with 39 disposals – an equal grand final record – as well as nine clearances, two goals and a whopping 896 metres gained.
He started it by asserting himself on a fierce contest.
First with a big bump on Bulldogs ball magnet Jack Macrae.
Then by booting the opening goal, seven minutes in.
At the same end as his dribble kick, Petracca played on and launched truly from outside 50.
It set the scene for a performance that will long be remembered, particularly by Melbourne fans who have been so desperate for a first premiership since 1964.
And it is the type that will send him towards the footy pantheon he has long sought to be part of.
In 2017, just 25 games into his career, he told News Corp he wanted to “be that guy who’s remembered as one of the Hall of Famers”.
“Everyone has dreams, everyone wants to be the best,” Petracca said at the time.
But until last year, the No. 2 pick in the 2014 national draft felt he had been an inconsistent player.
He told News Corp’s Mark Robinson so in August 2020.
The boy from Victorian club Beverley Hills with movie-star looks and who loves expensive sneakers had always had showstopping moments, rather than a standout season.
A knee reconstruction wiped out Petracca’s first campaign, then his second was delayed by a broken toe injured while playing basketball.
But Petracca turned a corner last year, gaining in self-belief and wanting to prove people wrong, so went about working extremely hard in the off-season.
It led to equal third placing in the Brownlow Medal and his first best-and-fairest win.
This season, he took his game up another notch.
He won the Anzac Day eve game medal earlier this year and was the pre-match Norm Smith Medal favourite.
Petracca went a long way to sealing the medal win in the third term, when the match was on the line, the Bulldogs looked like pushing clear and the Demons needed players to step up.
None stood taller than Petracca.
The Eastern Ranges product had 10 disposals and four clearances in the quarter, as the Demons swung the game.
His grand final performance was reminiscent of some of the greats on the biggest stage.
“He kicked the Dusty goal early, he kicked the (Peter) Daicos goal late – if you cross Dusty with Daicos you get Petracca,” Brian Taylor said on Channel 7.
Petracca’s two goals were eye-catching.
So were his bursts through the middle and long kicking – his possessions always seemed to have bite.
He was not simply starring in the centre.
Early in the last quarter Petracca ran down a Bulldog at halfback to win a holding the ball free kick.
Then later, at half-forward, he pirouetted away from a Caleb Daniel tackle and neatly found Tom McDonald, who kicked truly.
Petracca was No. 1 in the AFL for score involvements this year and he was central to plenty more on Saturday.
“He’s doing it all,” Dunstall said.
Triple M’s Nathan Brown added: “He’s clearly been the best man and most influential person on the ground.”
Petracca always had lofty ambitions, but when the final siren went, even he struggled to fathom what he and his club had achieved.
“I actually can’t speak right now – it feels like a dream,” he told Channel 7.
“It is quite unbelievable.
“We set out pre-season and the off-season to get this club back to where it should be.
“For every fan that is watching at home, we bloody did it.”
And spare a thought for Bulldogs skipper Marcus Bontempelli.
The 2016 premiership superstar was firming for the Norm Smith after slotting his third goal of the night and potentially as captain of a flag.
That would’ve certified an on-field CV that not even larger-than-life legend EJ Whitten could compete with.
But he was nowhere to be seen when the votes came out after the siren.
GAWN MISS LEAVES FANS SPELLBOUND
—Simeon Thomas-Wilson
Melbourne captain Max Gawn was left shocked after he looked to have a goal overruled in the second quarter.
The Melbourne ruckman had a set shot at goal from the right pocket midway through the second quarter.
The ball went higher than the goalposts and looked to have gone through for a major.
Gawn himself started celebrating but the goal umpire ruled it as a point.
There was no review and the Demons captain was left mystified. He threw his hands out and looked at the umpire in disbelief.
New vision has emerged of Max Gawn's set shot.
— SuperFooty (AFL) (@superfooty) September 25, 2021
Watch 👉 https://t.co/UqG3mpBPJh#AFLGFpic.twitter.com/GC4EK2cn49
That Gawn call is so tight, there's no way a review could have overturned it. Back the ump I reckon. 👠#AFLGF
— David Jordan (@DavidJordan33) September 25, 2021
That was a goal to Gawn. Where's the review? #AFLGF
— Tim Michell (@tim_michell) September 25, 2021
Goal umpire was looking straight up the goal post, no player except Gawn disputed the decision, 7 commentry, media all biased towards Dees, even the umpires interpretation
— Mark McLachlan (@MarkTMcLachlan) September 25, 2021
For what it’s worth I think the goal review system is rubbish and shouldn’t exist, but not using it for that Gawn shot when it does exist is absurd.
— Anthony Bieniak (@Bienie) September 25, 2021
Max Gawn kicked the goal I don’t care what you say #AFLGF
— Nath Holt (@Nath_Holt) September 25, 2021
How on earth was that Max Gawn goal not given?? That was a goal clear as day. #AFLGF
— Alex Lowe (@Lowey1993) September 25, 2021
At the time Melbourne was on 36 and the Dogs on 27. If Gawn’s kick had been ruled a goal they would have moved to 42, instead of 37.
Soon after Marcus Bontempelli marked and goaled to bring the margin back to four points — Melbourne 5.7 (37) to Bulldogs 5.3 (33).
“This is one that we maybe look at a lot after it,” former Fremantle captain Matthew Pavlich said on Fox Footy.
“He was pretty certain it was a goal.”
Tragedy, triumph and the phone call that changed everything
Logan Evans started 2023 as a highly-rated draft prospect. But in the space of two months, his life was turned upside down. The teenager was then hit with another blow in November – before the phone rang.
‘Overdone’: Shock Welcome to Country take
The former Geelong forward and proud Aboriginal man has very strong feelings about “overdone” Welcome to Country ceremonies.