{"id":830480,"date":"2026-07-29T04:14:14","date_gmt":"2026-07-29T04:14:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/830480\/"},"modified":"2026-07-29T04:14:14","modified_gmt":"2026-07-29T04:14:14","slug":"afl-steven-king-plays-down-petracca-hype-ahead-of-demons-clash","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/830480\/","title":{"rendered":"AFL: Steven King plays down Petracca hype ahead of Demons clash"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Melbourne coach Steven King is refusing to let his playing group get sucked into the media attention surrounding former Demon and Gold Coast midfielder Christian Petracca.<\/p>\n<p>The Suns utility has made headlines throughout the week for a verbal altercation with young teammate Leo Lombard in the team\u2019s loss to Carlton at Marvel Stadium on Saturday.<\/p>\n<p>Petracca never played under King, but the first-year Demons coach had nothing but praise for the midfielder on Wednesday morning.<\/p>\n<p>King said he \u201chadn\u2019t mentioned\u201d the effect of Petracca going up against his former side.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m sure (the players) will be excited to see him, he\u2019s a champion of our club, and he\u2019s had a great year,\u201d King said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe know what he\u2019s like at his best and how damaging he can be.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>King said he \u201chadn\u2019t heard too much about\u201d Petracca\u2019s altercation with Lombard.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI can\u2019t answer questions about how people respond when they aren\u2019t in our four walls,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019ll have to look at them as a total picture of them as a team.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe\u2019s one of their handful of players that we\u2019ll need to curtail a little bit to go out there and win the four points.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe\u2019s a proud competitor and an elite player of the competition at his best, so that\u2019s what we\u2019ll be preparing for.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Originally published as <a class=\"body-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.news.com.au\/sport\/afl\/melbourne-coach-steven-king-shuts-down-talk-of-christian-petracca-drama\/news-story\/e24c4aaa1372593863a6ebe010606706\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Melbourne coach Steven King shuts down talk of Christian Petracca drama<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Melbourne coach Steven King is refusing to let his playing group get sucked into the media attention surrounding&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":830481,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[560],"tags":[403576,383312,387196,403592,380489,403593,387445,403594,403585,376637,638,403583,64,63,55,639,6856,403590,403598,403596,43,377212,403587,403589,25331,7145,403580,16691,647,390984,43961,403574,395167,403581,1861,403586,403577,7820,59906,403595,85,79260,37806,380422,403599,403575,403588,403591,403582,175806,403578,315971,98734,403579,403584,403597],"class_list":["post-830480","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-afl","tag-s-altercation","tag-s-loss","tag-a-champion","tag-a-great-year","tag-a-little-bit","tag-a-proud-competitor","tag-a-team","tag-a-total-picture","tag-a-verbal-altercation","tag-a-way","tag-afl","tag-an-elite-player","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-australian-football-league","tag-australianfootballleague","tag-carlton","tag-christian-petracca-drama","tag-former-demon-and-gold-coast-midfielder-christian-petracca","tag-headline-grabber-christian-petracca","tag-headlines","tag-his-best","tag-his-former-side","tag-his-playing-group","tag-hype","tag-king","tag-lombard","tag-marvel-stadium","tag-melbourne","tag-melbourne-coach-steven-king","tag-newswire-sport","tag-nothing-but-praise","tag-our-club","tag-our-four-walls","tag-people","tag-petracca","tag-petracca-reunion","tag-players","tag-questions","tag-saturday-petracca","tag-sports","tag-steven-king","tag-talk","tag-the-competition","tag-the-effect","tag-the-first-year-demons-coach","tag-the-four-points","tag-the-media-attention","tag-the-midfielder","tag-the-players","tag-the-suns-utility","tag-the-team","tag-the-week","tag-their-handful","tag-wednesday-morning-king","tag-young-teammate-leo-lombard"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/830480","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=830480"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/830480\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/830481"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=830480"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=830480"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=830480"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}