Melbourne star Christian Petracca and his family are disgruntled at the way the club has handled the terrifying season-ending injuries to the midfielder, reports Caroline Wilson.
The 2021 premiership winner had surgery last week to repair four broken ribs, lacerations to the spleen and a punctured lung after an incident in the Demons’ 38-point loss to Collingwood in round 13.
Petracca went back onto the field and played until he was eventually removed from the match and rushed to hospital, where the extent of his injuries were revealed.
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Now, Wilson has uncovered the true discomfort Petracca’s fiancée and parents have felt towards the club in the days following the severe injuries, which was first broken by Nine’s chief football reporter Tom Morris on Monday, which confined him to an ICU unit until the middle of last week.
“Absolutely (they were upset) and frustrated at the club. I think it’s more what happened in the days that followed. There was certainly a feeling from the Petracca family the club could’ve done things better,” Wilson revealed on Nine’s Footy Classified on Monday night.
“I think Melbourne are very worried. This is such a sensitive issue and nobody wants to go on the record. Whether it’s the Petracca side or the club side.
“I think it all dates back to the decision to put him back on the ground.”
It comes after Petracca posted an update on his Instagram, stating that he was shouldering the blame for re-entering the field of play despite being in obvious pain.
“I’m responsible for putting myself out there by the way, for people talking about the medicos,” Petracca said on a now-deleted Instagram post.
“It was gone (deleted) by Wednesday,” Wilson added.
“It’s true he was in the ICU until Wednesday or Thursday and wasn’t allowed visitors except for his partner Bella and his parents.”
Wilson also noted that the club struggled to communicate with Petracca’s family, unsure of which avenue to go down when the family raised concerns.
“It’s difficult, do you deal with the player and his partner when the player is 28 and lives with his partner? Or do you deal with his parents? Maybe they needed to talk to everyone, not just Petracca and his partner,” she said.
“They’re (Melbourne) saying: ‘Could we have done this? Could we have done that?’.”
Wilson is now calling on the league to rethink their processes that allow players to make decisions regarding their health and whether they feel up to returning to the field of play.
“I know the AFL has cleared it, (but) I think systems need to change if that can happen in the first place,” she said.
“I think it goes to how shattered (the Petracca family) were.”