Christian Petracca has lofty ambitions and the confidence to help him get there
BIG hands, long arms, a barrel chest and quads like a weightlifter. And as SAM EDMUND discovered, Melbourne’s young bull Christian Petracca also has plenty of ambition.
Melbourne
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EMERGING Melbourne powerhouse Christian Petracca says he is “nowhere near” fulfilling his potential in a career he wants to reach the very top.
Petracca, whose midfield influence in his 25th match spectacularly helped turned the game against Adelaide last weekend, believes he’s only just getting started.
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“Like everyone, I want to be the best I can ever be. I want to be that guy who’s remembered as one of the Hall of Famers,” Petracca told the Sunday Herald Sun.
“Everyone has dreams; everyone wants to be the best.”
A knee reconstruction wiped out Petracca’s first season before an infamous broken toe playing basketball delayed his second.
“I’m only 25 games in. It’s crazy how I’ve been in the system for three years and only played 25 games, but looking back the knee has been the best thing for me,” Petracca said.
“It gave me a year to grow as a person off the field and become more humble, I guess.
“You realise how cut-throat this industry is. One minute you’re the No.2 pick and the next you’ve done your ACL and you’re maybe one injury away from ending your career.”
Petracca, recruited as an explosive forward-midfielder, has set his mind on improving his endurance to become a more regular onballer in the form of Richmond’s Dustin Martin and Port Adelaide’s Robbie Gray.
The 21-year-old Demon has slashed more than 40 seconds off his 3km personal best — now 10min 29 sec — since arriving at the club.
“I’m still learning about myself, the type of person I want to be and the type of player I want to be,” Petracca said.
“We’re such a young team, we’re going to have games where we do drop off, but as Simon Goodwin keep saying, we’ve got to keep riding the journey.”
‘I’M PROBABLY THE MOST ANNOYING GUY YOU’LL EVER MEET’
PETRACCA has always talked the talk.
Walking the walk is now catching up.
Just six months after joining Melbourne he told a journalist, who had criticised teammate Jack Watts, to “be quiet” on Twitter.
The childhood Collingwood supporter even tweeted “#gopies” despite being well into his first season as a Demon.
But Petracca at 21 and with 25 promising games under his belt is learning to harness an “always on” self-confidence that’s now more strength than weakness.
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The Australian cricket team had the Julios and the Nerds to split personalities. The Demons have the Mozzies — Petracca, Watts and Jayden Hunt.
“I’m possibly the most annoying guy you’ll ever meet,” Petracca laughed.
“I’m self diagnosed ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder). It’s a good trait to have, I think, given where the club’s come from because you need life.
“You can’t be going back to the club after a loss like Hawthorn (Round 7) and be thinking ‘bloody hell, we’ve lost, it’s the end of the world’.
“But it can get me into strife a fair bit. The older guys give me a fair whack every now and then.”
One of those older guys was Petracca’s first AFL coach, Paul Roos.
“He’s a lively, enthusiastic fella. Sometimes his concentration span is not as long as you’d like it to be, but that’s what makes people different,” Roos said this week.
“He was always looking and wanting to know of anything that’s a bit more interesting than what we were doing. If it is he wanders off and if it’s not he sits there quietly for a while.”
Petracca knows he can be somewhat misunderstood.
“I don’t think the guys liked me too much the first few weeks, but once they got familiar with me they understood who I am,” he said.
“The way people perceive me is probably quite arrogant and selfish. There’s a fine line between arrogance and self-confidence and to survive in the AFL these days you’ve got to have the latter.
“By no means do I think I’m arrogant or selfish. I think I’m the most unselfish guy, but in terms of wanting to be the best you’ve got to have confidence in yourself. I’ve always had that and always been open about that.”
The Sunday Herald Sun is sitting with Melbourne’s blossoming bull-at-a-gate forward-midfielder in the Demons’ theatrette.
The first thing that strikes you is his size. At 186cm, Petracca isn’t overly tall, but he looks powerful sitting still. Big hands, long arms, a barrel chest and quads like a weightlifter.
One of three sons to mum Elvira and dad Tony, who migrated from Italy as a toddler, Petracca still lives with them in the Warrandyte family home.
He prefers coffee over tea, wine over beer and his taste in music is deep house. He’s obsessed with NBA star Russell Westbrook and has been dating girlfriend Paige Carr since he was 17.
“Mum has an accounting brain and gave me a lot more financial advice than I think most parents would give. I’m still on an allowance of $300 a week through my management and that’s been the best thing for me,” Petracca said.
“Dad is a landscaper who grew up a Collingwood supporter and used to be a security guard at Victoria Park. He was in the national swimming squad and he has massive quads, bigger than mine. They’re huge.”
Days into his off-season break last September, Petracca spent a week working for his dad and a plumber mate, Alex Robinson, because he was “bored”.
“I get bored way too easily. I won’t be doing it again though; it was too hard,” he said.
“I don’t know how dad does it. I worked with Alex for five days and I thought I was a good labourer. He bloody used me though; he said he had a sore back so I had to a lot of the heavy lifting.”
Petracca’s older brothers, Robert, 29, and Julian, 26, keep him grounded like only siblings can.
“I’ve been copping s--t from them all my life,” he said.
“In TAC Cup I’d get home and watch edits of my games and they would be like ‘s--t kick’, ‘what are you doing there?’ or ‘you’re not working hard at all’.
“I remember my first pre-season session at Melbourne was a 14km session and I was dead, but I got home and they’ve got Channel 7 news recorded. It was like ‘Christian Petracca has struggled in his first session this week’ and they’re ripping into me.
“The next week Simon Goodwin and Brendan McCartney came over for dinner and they showed them the video, too.
“Even at the club, you say one good thing about yourself and you get absolutely ripped into, which is a good thing.”
Petracca’s social media manner has improved (“I like expressing myself, but there’s a point where you become an idiot”), but the bond he formed with Watts so early into life at Melbourne remains as strong as ever.
“I just love and admire Jack Watts, to be honest. I’ve never felt so strongly of a person in terms of their resilience,” he said.
“He is someone who’s had so much scrutiny on him for a decade now and he’s just brushed it aside and remained the person he is, which is a fulfilled happy guy.”
Petracca and Melbourne are seemingly on the same journey. Exciting glimpses have become exciting quarters and exciting games. Exciting seasons would soon follow, he believed.
“The Adelaide game was one of the best wins I’ve ever been a part of. Watching some of the fourth quarter from the bench and seeing the pressure we were putting on was just unreal,” he said.
Petracca the player is far from fulfilled. The former No.2 draft pick is a forward-midfielder who hopes to become a midfielder-forward in the mould of Dustin Martin and Robbie Gray.
“My endurance isn’t holding me back. I’ve improved dramatically since I got here, but there’s still room for improvement. I’ve taken my 3km time from 11min10secs to 10min40sec to 10min29sec,” he said.
“I want to be that person that can play midfield, but one who can rest forward to go deep if the game is in the balance.”
He’ll be doing that in red and blue. Out of contract at the end of next season, he said re-signing was a formality.
“I absolutely love it here,” he said.
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