ONE TRADE decision was driven by the player, the other by the club, and when combined last October, made for the most extraordinary of AFL trade periods.

Fast forward to Opening Round 2026, and both players had immediate, telling impact for new clubs. Christian Petracca was a clear best-afield for Gold Coast against Geelong, Clayton Oliver almost certain to be among the Brownlow Medal votes for GWS against Hawthorn.

The post-match smiles and body language were as memorable as the goals, kicks and handballs. Petracca and Oliver looked happy to be playing AFL, and not, as they seemingly had been for at least the previous two seasons and possibly longer, burdened by the red and blue.

How these two Melbourne Football Club greats found themselves unwanted just four seasons after combining to secure one of the great AFL premierships will forever be studied, but a dominant and common theme from the Demons’ side of the story was that combined, yet for very different reasons, the two sucked so much energy out of people and operations.

Petracca with an obsession for his brand as well as a major, and understandably valid, change to his football and general outlook after suffering very serious injury in 2024. Oliver with an inability to present himself anywhere near elite AFL standards, a massive shift from his dedication to eliteness when winning an extraordinary four Demons’ best-and-fairest awards inside the 2017-22 seasons.

No one at Melbourne wants the two to fail with their new clubs, and no one at Melbourne dislikes the two as people. But it has been observed by many attached to the club in the past five months that the Demons workplace is a more enjoyable environment than it had been for the previous two seasons.

Through the transaction with the Suns, Petracca’s departure was financially clean for Melbourne. But not so with Oliver, who remains at least part of the problems of the Melbourne list management department, due to the desperation of the club, just weeks after appointing Steven King as Simon Goodwin’s replacement as coach, to get him out of its building. The Demons accepted a near-meaningless third-round national draft pick and committed paying about $3.5 million to GWS as part of a contract that runs to the end of 2030.

The Petracca deal secured two first-round draft selections and did not include a requirement for Melbourne to pay any of the wage it had committed when signing him to a deal to the end of 2029.

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Christian Petracca dominates his first outing for Gold Coast with 34 disposals and three goals in a best-on-ground display

Melbourne has, rightly, copped a heap of criticism for how it has run itself since the 2021 premiership, but managing both Oliver and Petracca was not easy and took an extraordinary toll.

Even after the club rewarded the duo in signing them to benchmark AFL deals that respectively took in the 2030 and 2029 seasons, they acted – again for very different reasons – as though they were not being sufficiently thanked and appreciated. And their form, particularly Oliver’s, for the Demons, when compared with their highs, reflected that.

And now the Demons, who don’t get to open their 2026 season until Sunday in a game against St Kilda, were forced to witness the two produce matches that would rank somewhere among their very best, a long, long time after they had reached anything like those heights at their first club.

Oliver, not surprisingly to anyone at Melbourne, wanted to keep fighting with his old club in his first post-match interview as a Giant.

“I came back pretty unfit to be honest, a little bit fat,” Oliver said after the Opening Round match on Fox Footy. “Honestly these boys, the first session I came back I was running with Toby Bedford, Lachie Ash and mate, the standard they set is actually on another level.

“We came back in November, there was 45 boys back, two weeks early, they’re just that hungry.

“I think that’s why I came here. I know what the talent we’ve got on the list, but I think it’s the hard work. Adam Kingsley has put that in from the top, it’s unreal.”

Max Gawn, as captain of the Demons during these recently troubled times, could not have done more to support the disgruntled duo. And now, they are not his problem.

When asked on Triple M on Tuesday morning what he thought of Oliver’s post-match comments after his first game as a Giant, where he had strategically introduced the word “standard” to an answer, Gawn said: “It’s come across my desk that he’s said a few things, but once again, I don’t really care what Clayton says.”

Petracca and Oliver have moved on. Gawn and the Demons have, too. The blame game will never be properly resolved. But the new football game has started. Petracca and Oliver among the best afield at new clubs, and Melbourne about to begin playing life without players who won a combined six best-and-fairests in just seven seasons.

Everyone wants to present as a winner here, and right now, they all are. But this is a long game. And it has only just begun.