{"id":822912,"date":"2026-07-25T12:19:23","date_gmt":"2026-07-25T12:19:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/822912\/"},"modified":"2026-07-25T12:19:23","modified_gmt":"2026-07-25T12:19:23","slug":"afl-news-2026-christian-petracca-spray-to-leo-lombard-damien-hardwick-comments-suns-vs-carlton","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/822912\/","title":{"rendered":"AFL news 2026 | Christian Petracca spray to Leo Lombard, Damien Hardwick comments; Suns vs Carlton"},"content":{"rendered":"

The severity of Christian Petracca<\/a>\u2019s spray to teammate Leo Lombard has suggested there are serious issues at the Suns<\/a> after the two clashed in the final quarter of the Gold Coast\u2019s 16.14 (110) – 15.7 (97)<\/a> loss to Carlton<\/a>. <\/p>\n

With seven minutes to go, the Suns were down by 12 points and inside 50 as Lombard and Petracca ran the same channel off a tap. <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Leo Lombard looks on after a spray from Christian Petracca.\u00a0Fox Footy<\/p>\n

Lombard grabbed the Sherrin and was caught holding the ball with Petracca giving him a fiery spray in the aftermath. <\/p>\n

In response, Lombard told Petracca to \u201cf— off\u201d.<\/p>\n

The exchange gives pundits a chance to read into perceived internal issues at the Suns amid the club\u2019s nine-match losing streak. <\/p>\n

On Fox Footy, David King said it provided an insight into the issues inside the dressing room. <\/p>\n

\u201cSometimes, perception is reality, and from the outside looking in, we\u2019re looking for fractures in the group, and that\u2019s a simple reality when you have a seven-win season and drop out of the finals race as early as they have,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cPetracca here and a young player in Leo Lombard, who\u2019s 19 years of age, he\u2019s played 23 games. Petracca has done it all. And not only does he give (Lombard) a bake, he gives him two or three.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd it\u2019s not taken well by the young fella, who turns around and lets him know, \u2018OK, I might have done the wrong thing, but give me a spell\u2019.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey need to get to the core of these problems. Damien Hardwick will say that happens 100 times a game, and maybe it does, but not to that level, not to a level of a senior player chasing back in and barking back in while a young player\u2019s on the ground.<\/p>\n

\u201cI understand feedback can be harsh and severe \u2026 but not a senior, core 30-year-old to a 19-year-old, 20-gamer.\u201d<\/p>\n

King\u2019s foreshadowing was almost spot on with Hardwick saying post-game that those incidents would happen thousands of times over the weekend. <\/p>\n

When asked about the exchange, Hardwick initially acted unaware of the harsh words, saying \u201cclash in what way?\u201c, before going into greater depth. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe game requires feedback. How you respond to that feedback is something Leo as a young player, he\u2019ll get better at,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not privy to the conversation, we\u2019ll talk about it during the week. It is what it is, happens thousands of times over the weekend.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The severity of Christian Petracca\u2019s spray to teammate Leo Lombard has suggested there are serious issues at the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":822913,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[560],"tags":[638,64,63,55,639,85],"class_list":["post-822912","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-afl","tag-afl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-australian-football-league","tag-australianfootballleague","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/822912","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=822912"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/822912\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/822913"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=822912"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=822912"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=822912"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}