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"Wasn't a great look": Sanderson reacts to Lombard-Petracca incident
Nicholas Quinlan • July 27th, 2026 12:50 am
Former Adelaide coach Brenton Sanderson has reacted to a verbal incident involving Gold Coast Suns teammates Christian Petracca and Leo Lombard.
In the final moments of Saturday’s 13-point loss to Carlton, vision captured the four-time All-Australian shouting at 19-year-old teammate Lombard after the Suns’ academy graduate was caught holding the ball within their forward 50 after both went for the ball.
Lombard then appeared to tell Petracca to “f--k off” as Lachie Cowan got up to take his free kick.
The incident has been widely commended by the footy world, with Fox Footy and SEN’s David King criticising Petracca’s attitude towards his younger teammate.
“He’s played 23 games (and) Petracca has done it all,” he said.
“Not only does he give a bake (to Lombard), he gives him two or three.
“And it’s not taken well by the young fella, who turns around and lets him know, ‘OK, I might have done the wrong thing, but give me a spell’.
“They 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.”
Reflecting on the event a day after it took place, Sanderson took a similar view, noting that while criticism among teammates is not uncommon, the way it was displayed in this instance was not a great look.
“On the field, there's good conflict, and there's poor conflict,” Sanderson said on SEN’s Crunch Time.
“These are super competitors; these are young men who are desperate to win, and both of those men are.
“You can say stuff like they did on the field when it's stuff like, you're meant to roll behind me, or you need to stay deeper, or you were meant to block and that.
“But then there's the poor conflict (like) the personal criticism, the blaming, the sarcasm, the body language that shows real disrespect.
“I think those conversations need to be had with the playing group before because there are conversations on the field that improve performance and there's conversations on the field that really does damage trust.
“So, that wasn't a great look yesterday when we were watching it.”
Gold Coast will be hoping that their losing streak doesn’t extend into double digits next week.
They face the Demons at People First Stadium next Sunday with the match beginning at 3:15pm AEST.
