Stephenson’s second season ended abruptly and in controversy, after the league banned him for 10 matches – with another 12 suspended for the rest of his career – and fined him $20,000 for betting on Collingwood matches.
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The Pies traded Stephenson to North Melbourne the next year as part of their so-called “fire sale”, where Adam Treloar (Western Bulldogs), Tom Phillips (Hawthorn) and Atu Bosenavulagi (Kangaroos) were also offloaded to opposition clubs to ease salary cap pressure.
He had an inauspicious start at the Roos, suffering a fractured hip right after his first season there when he landed on concrete at home after a mountain bike trick that went wrong. But Stephenson’s talent was always obvious, and he had some strong individual performances at North before the extended tough times at the club wore him down.
“I had games where I had 24 [disposals] and kicked three [goals], and then you come out of your game review, and I felt pretty flat,” Stephenson told the What Could’ve Been podcast last month.
“It was like, ‘I’ve done this wrong, and I’ve done that wrong’ – is it because we lost, or is it actually what it is? I don’t know. Everything just seemed to be amplified, and I obviously didn’t deal with it well enough, and it did just start to weigh and weigh and weigh.
“Eventually, I just didn’t want to be there – I fell out of love with it, [and] was over it. It was tough.”
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