For eight years Melbourne midfield ace Christian Petracca was nothing but a proverbial pain in the butt for the Gold Coast SUNS.

He played 10 times against the club for 10 wins by an average of 49 points, including four by 11 goals-plus. He averaged 28.2 possessions, including a career-high 40 in 2022, kicked 12 goals and had four consecutive three-vote games in 2020-21-22-23.

It changed in 2025 with the SUNS beating the Demons twice, but it won’t be an issue in 2026 after Petracca became a SUN yesterday.

The 29-year-old 212-game premiership veteran, a four-time All-Australian, dual Melbourne B&F winner and 2021 Norm Smith Medallist, was traded to the SUNS in the biggest recruiting coup since Gary Ablett Jnr.

Petracca will move north as one of the premier players in the competition since 2020, and a veritable ‘machine’ when it comes to Brownlow Medal votes.

In the last six years Petracca has polled 125 medal votes – fewer only than Brisbane’s dual winner Lachie Neale (136), Carlton captain Patrick Cripps (130) and Western Bulldogs captain Marcus Bontempelli (126).

He’s polled 56 times in 120 home-and-away games in that time, including 27 three-voters, and finished equal 3^rd, equal 9^th, 6^th and 6^th in the medal from 2020-23. He was 

28^th in 2024 despite missing the last 10 games through injury and equal 23^rd this year.

With 130 career votes he ranks equal 55^th all-time – 11^th among current players. Only 24 players in history have polled more votes without winning the medal.

Thirteen Things To Know About Christian Petracca

• Of Italian heritage and a Collingwood supporter in his youth, he grew up in suburban Warrandyte in Melbourne, played juniors at Park Orchards Sharks, Warrandyte Bloods and Beverley Hills, and was captain of the Victorian Under-12 side.
  
  
• He also played cricket, soccer, tennis and basketball, and in his early days was considered a better basketballer than footballer. Vice-captain of the Victorian Primary Schools side and captain of the Victorian Under-16s, he was chosen in an Australian Under-17 squad with Dante Exum, later drafted at #5 to Dallas Mavericks in the NBA. But at 16 he chose football over basketball so he could stay in Australia and be close to his family.
  
  
• He played with the Eastern Ranges in 2013-14, and in his top-age year finished third in the Morrish Medal and was named in the TAC Cup Team of the Year. At the Australian Under 18 Championships he won the Larke Medal and the Vic Metro B&F, was chosen in the centre in the All-Australian side, and was a member of the AFL/AIS Academy.
• Educated at Whitefriars College, which also counts Sam Collins among its alumni, he went to Swinburne College in 2014 to study commerce and marketing.
  
   
• Touted as a possible #1 pick, he went to Melbourne at pick #2 in the 2014 National Draft behind Paddy McCartin and ahead of #3 Angus Brayshaw, #4 Jarrod Pickett, #5 Jordan DeGoey, #6 Caleb Marchbank, #7 Paul Ahern, Suns #8 Peter Wright, #9 Darcy Moore and #10 Nakia Cockatoo.
  
   
• He blew out his knee at training in February 2015 and missed his entire first season. 
  
   
• Like fellow newcomer Jamarra Ugle-Hagan, he celebrated his first AFL goal and his first AFL win at People First Stadium in his second AFL game. It was Round 7 2016. He had 24 possessions (12 contested) and kicked two goals in a 73-point Demons win.
  
   
• In Round 13 last year against Collingwood at the MCG he suffered a lacerated spleen, punctured lung and four fractured ribs in the first quarter but returned to the field before being subbed out. He later revealed there was a month where he couldn’t walk any further than his hallway. He lost 7.5 kilos and couldn’t lift more than 10kg for four months.
  
   
• The injury ended a run in which he played 189 of a possible 190 games from his debut, including 145 in a row – the equal 17^th best streak in AFL history. Except for a one-week finger injury in 2018 it would have been 190. And he played all 23 games in 2025. 
  
   
• He finished top 10 in the Melbourne B&F seven times. He won in 2020-23, was 2^nd in 2021-22-25, 5^th in 2019 and 7^th in 2017. 
  
   
• He wore jumper #5 in a every game for Melbourne – a club record.
  
   
• In the 2021 grand final at Perth Stadium, where Melbourne beat the Bulldogs by 74 points, he won the Norm Smith Medal with 39 possessions (24 contested), two goals and nine clearances, equalling the grand final possession record set by Brisbane’s Simon Black in 2003. He polled the maximum 15 votes. Overall he’s played 10 finals in four finals campaigns in 2018-21-22-23, averaging 26.3 ppg and kicking seven goals.
  
   
• He has 4995 career possessions and 202 goals in 212 games, and in his first game for the Suns is set to become the 180^thplayer in history to 5000. Touk Miller was #179 in his 211^th game in Round 24 this year and, more of a pure midfielder, he had 71 goals.