Ryan Daniels: Christian Petracca sounds the alarm over Melbourne iceberg, but is anyone listening?

Remember the first time you watched Titanic? I do. I was a nervous, pimply-faced 14-year-old, anxiously sitting next to a girl in a cinema, trying desperately not to laugh, cry, fart — or breathe. As I spent the next 195 minutes attempting to navigate my sweaty palms into an awkward teenage handhold, I couldn’t help but become intoxicated by the romance of Leo and Kate. Poor boy, rich girl, a forbidden union. Their love so new, so pure, so unaware of reality. They danced, they painted, they steamed up the backseat of a Renault. Little did they know, the iceberg was coming. Within a flash Kate would be clinging to a floating door, as Leo sank to his watery grave. Talk about grim. If only they had a warning. Had they known what was coming, they could’ve stolen a lifeboat, or warned the ship Captain. You know, like Christian Petracca just did for the Melbourne hierarchy. Will they listen? If they don’t, the iceberg is coming. Quickly. Like Leo and Kate, the Dees have had a magical run the last few years - their best in half a century – peaking with the 2021 premiership, their “I’m flying, Jack!” moment. The weather has turned. What we’re seeing play out in public these past 12 months, is the beginning of the plunge to the ocean floor – a place Melbourne fans are all too familiar with. Melbourne isn’t Geelong or Sydney – this recent period of contention, of a premiership success, isn’t the norm. The Demons your father knew were a basket case. From 2021-2023 they won 16 or more games in each season. Prior to that, their last such season was in 1990. Before that it was 1956. From 1966-2016 (50 years) they had exactly 13 seasons where they won more games than they lost, made just two grand finals (lost by a combined 156 points), never finished top of the ladder, and had 18 different coaches – an average of 2.7 years per coach. For nine years from 2007-2015 the Dees won 22% of their 198 games. Barely one in every five. Oh – and they almost merged with Hawthorn in 1996, something their own members signed off on, until it was blocked by the Hawks faithful. For the majority of the last six decades, they’ve been football’s version of Britney shaving her head. What this club faces right now is its own reflection in the mirror. If they look closely enough, they’ll see Britney staring back at them. A few weeks ago, the stories started to leak - Christian Petracca wanted out. At some point it seems Trac realised his best chance at overhauling his own club, was to leverage the best asset at his disposal - himself. Their best player, highest profile star, the Norm Smith medallist who turned a Grand Final in 15 minutes. He cared so deeply he was willing to sacrifice his own reputation. Kozzy Pickett’s situation also became cloudy - perhaps coincidentally, perhaps not. Multiple stars considering a move has a way of raising a giant red flag. It’s hard to know where it all began – was it the boardroom turmoil which ousted former president Glenn Bartlett, resulting in ongoing legal action? The time Steven May and Jake Melksham exchanged words, then fists? The whole Clayton Oliver mess? The final straw may’ve been Petracca’s heath concerns following a brutal hit, a return to the field, then a recovery process which clearly left the Demons superstar feeling detached. This was followed by Kate Roffey, then President, appearing on radio and butchering an interview so badly she had no option but to step down. Again - these are not things that happen at Geelong, at Sydney. The club is now conducting two separate reviews – of its Board and its men’s football program. The footy review is being done by Brad Green – the interim president — plus chief executive Gary Pert, and former All-Blacks manager Darren Shand. Call me a cynic, but having only one external set of eyes running a rule over operations seems insufficient. They still have talent. Petracca, Pickett, May, Oliver, Max Gawn, Jake Lever, Jack Viney. These are high-end AFL players. But they aren’t enough to carry a questionable culture – and really, the talent and recent winning may’ve been covering a great deal of issues, left to fester beneath the celebrations. They simply cannot stuff this. Something appears rotten at that football club right now. If this review doesn’t sniff it out, if they don’t get ahead of the incoming rebuild, if they can’t acknowledge when a star has a serious health issue or get a president to call their vice-captain when he’s suffered a traumatic injury – or stop their players from punching-on in public – they’re doomed. I don’t know what the issues are, who needs to go, what needs to change — but it can’t just be Roffey, it can’t just be a box-ticking exercise. This club’s loyal fans put up with a lot of disappointment for decades – incompetence, immaturity and insolence are threatening to see history repeated. Hopefully Petracca’s warning came soon enough — and loud enough — or this grand old vessel is headed for the abyss. Again.