Max Gawn in sad personal revelation amid Christian Petracca and Clayton Oliver sagas

Melbourne captain Max Gawn has revealed with all that has happened at the Demons this year even he has found it tough at times to "trust" what the players and the club were saying. The Demons skipper says the dramas surrounding star players Christian Petracca and Clayton Oliver had taken an emotional toll on him, in what was an admittedly mentally exhausting season.

The Demons' off-season the past two seasons has been full of turbulence, with midfield star Oliver linked to a move away from the club before and after the 2024 campaign. He has ultimately agreed to stay put, with Melbourne officials adamant he will honour a contract that stretches to 2030. They have reiterated that exact same message in the case of Petracca as well, who it was claimed fell out with senior Demons officials over the handling of his season-ending injury.

Petracca even missed the club's best and fairest night, choosing instead to attend a Red Bull training camp in Austria - with approval from his coaches - and he has subsequently committed to getting back to his best for the Demons next season. But all the off-field turmoil has led to the skipper feeling exhausted and run down. In a recent interview on Brownlow Medal day, Gawn said the intense focus on the club's culture - heightened by Petracca’s desire to leave - took the heaviest toll on him that he can ever remember.

"The latest stuff with Trac, it's worn me down and I don’t like that because I feel like I have always been able to handle it, but it’s starting to wear me down," Gawn told the Empowering Leaders podcast. "It’s something I’ve always been proud of that I feel like I have a good handle on creating the most successful era and I can see it getting chewed, constantly chipped at and chipped at and I’m constantly trying to defend it.

"I know what’s happening in the four walls, but you are never going to trust that with regular spot fires. It’s been a delicate little time." Gawn and his wife Jessica provided support to Oliver through difficult times in pre-season after the midfielder was sent away from pre-season training early to deal with off-field issues. After taking the troubled Demon into their home in October when Jessica was heavily pregnant, the skipper revealed that he is glad he is back on track although admitted they had to have some hard conversations.

"We had a really long chat one night and I said to him it had to happen. He said ‘Yep’," Gawn said. "It was about a month, it was off-season, I was going away on and off, he almost came with me to Fiji. It was something we both felt like needed to happen, we are really close. Clayton was a really nice moment for me as a leader, to see that change happen."

Max Gawn says he's learning to love the journey again

Melbourne have fallen off since their drought-breaking 2021 premiership and even dropped out of the top eight this season amid off-field turmoil. But the ruckman said he and the club have been there before, pointing to the rocky period when Simon Goodwin became coach in 2019 that led them to the premiership. And Gawn says he is learning to love the journey of trying to climb the mountain again.

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"There's a journey. Every time I look at (his ring) I go '2022 didn't go the way we wanted, 2023 didn't go the way we wanted' - 2024 reminds me of 2019," Gawn said. "But it doesn't just happen. Premierships are so hard. And this ring reminds me ... the journey's the fun bit.

"Now I look back at 2018, 2019 and at that time, I was miserable. I look back at those years and go 'They were great years' ... we learned, we developed, we became closer friends. It's hard to see it, but that's what I see these last three years as. I'm going to look back in 2025, or 2026, whenever that ultimate glory happens, and go '2024 was the year that did that'. That's what that ring reminds me of."

with agencies