‘Gawny come on’: Dees stunned by ‘Ali’ moment

Norm Smith Medallist Christian Petracca has revealed how disappointed he was in Demons skipper Max Gawn when he was tossed to the turf in the AFL grand final by the Bulldogs’ Caleb Daniel.

The incident occurred in the third quarter with the Bulldogs up 19 points and with all the momentum. Gawn was chasing a loose ball on the wing when Daniel chased him out of bounds and made a tackle.

Despite being 1.7m tall compared to Gawn who stands over 2m, Daniel flung the Demons ruckman to the Optus Stadium turf beside the boundary fence.

Then to add a little extra spice to the ferocious tackle, Daniel stood over Gawn to assert his dominance. Gawn looked up a bit shocked but was otherwise fine.

In a humorous admission Petracca told Nine’s Sunday AFL Footy Show that he was not impressed by the captain’s effort.

“I think it was a bit of…I mean, Gawny come on,” Petracca joked.

“I ran past him to go to the bench and I looked at him and was [thinking] like, ‘You can’t be doing that’. What is he [Daniel]? 5-foot-7? You’re 6-11, and you went down like a rag doll.

“Come on mate, you can’t be doing that. But you can’t tell him that though, you’ve just got to be like, ‘Come on, get up’.”

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AFL Sunday Footy Show host Tony Jones suggested the moment may have been a “turning point” in the game with it sparking a reaction of, ‘You’re not gonna do that to my captain and get away with it’.”

“You’ve got this pocket dynamo of a Bulldog and it reminded me of the famous [Muhammed] Ali photo almost.”

Gawn would get the last laugh on Daniel though.

The Bulldogs went on to cough up their lead after a massive attacking onslaught from the Demons late in the third quarter completely flipped the game.

Melbourne continued that momentum in the fourth quarter to win the grand final 140-66.

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