As a parade of champion AFL footballers call time on their glittering careers, a 41-year-old Kyabram legend of the game is facing his own sporting mortality and wrestling with the idea of ending a decade of dominance in Victorian country football.
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Sixteen years ago, Kayne Pettifer was running out on to the MCG alongside two teenagers in the famous yellow-and-black of Richmond Football Club. Now he is contemplating joining at least one of them in the ranks of the game’s past players.
Those two teenagers were Jack Riewoldt and Trent Cotchin. Pettifer was there for the first of Riewoldt’s 347 games and was also rubbing shoulders with Cotchin as he started the first of his 16 AFL seasons.
Unlike Pettifer, Riewoldt succumbed to the idea of ending his football career and has, only earlier today (Tuesday, August 15), decided to follow three-time premiership captain Cotchin into retirement.
Pettifer played the last of his 113 AFL games aged 27 in 2009, just a couple of years into the careers of Riewoldt and Cotchin, and only a year before another of Richmond’s triple-premiership heroes, Dustin Martin, first appeared in AFL ranks.
Pettifer recalled a super confident Riewoldt attempting to give Tigers goal-kicking legend Matthew Richardson advice at one of his first forwards’ meetings.
“He was a pretty confident kid,” he said.
Cotchin was a different kettle of fish, according to the Bomber champion. He was very polite and always on the straight and narrow.
“I think he has got the timing right,” Pettifer said.
As for Martin, Pettfier said he had built a rapport with the triple-Norm Smith medallist through the connections he had maintained at Richmond.
“He, ‘Richo’ and I would catch up for dinner, which was great times. Saw him last week and had a good chat,” he said.
“I think he will stay. I get the impression he wants to be a one-club player. The only thing that may change that is that Cotch and Jack are his two closest mates at the club and that could influence the decision with regard to joining ‘Dimma’ (former coach Damian Hardwick, who is widely tipped to be the next coach of the Gold Coast Suns).”
The Kyabram-raised father-of-three last week told the Free Press he was still not sure whether this would be his last year of football, determined to end his 23-year senior career on a high.
Sitting in his Melbourne lounge room with wife of 11 years, Laura, he has seen the game’s fourth greatest goal-kicker end a 354 game, 1066-goal career.
Lance ‘Buddy’ Franklin was drafted by Hawthorn with pick number two in 2004, four years after Pettifer was called out at number nine by Richmond.
His retirement has been followed by West Coast champions Luke Shuey and Shannon Hurn ending their playing days, last year’s Norm Smith medallist Isaac Smith of Geelong announcing his retirement and former Murray Bushrangers alumni Jack Ziebel calling time on his career at North Melbourne.
Still, the second eldest of four siblings who grew up barracking for the tiny tri-coloured Kyabram District League team Merrigum where his father played is holding off on saying the words “I’m done”.
Not even his club president organising a “roast’’, traditionally a sure sign that a player is just about to make some sort of announcement about their time in the game, has shifted Pettifer’s mindset.
Pettifer will be the focus of a sportsman’s night on Saturday, August 26, after the Bombers’ round 18 match against Benalla, where he will take the stage with one of his closest friends, Richardson.
Richardson will deliver the roast on Pettifer as they share the stage with Carlton legends Anthony Koutoufides and Ang Christou.
The event will be at Wilf Cox Pavillion and the club is selling $80 tickets to hear what Pettifer guarantees will be some entertaining and eye-opening stories from his former teammate.
“Richo has no lack of material and he is the ultimate professional when it comes to these things. He will be very prepared,” Pettifer said.
Richardson and Pettifer, who played alongside each other in the Richmond forward line for almost a decade, still catch up every week.
“He is one of my best mates,” Pettifer said.
“We are pretty similar — both nutcases who wear our heart on our sleeve.
“From the start he helped me be a better player. We trained together for years, were in each other’s wedding parties and we still go for a run once a week or do a few strides.
“He is competitive as ever, he always has to beat me.”
One of the stories Pettifer said was certain to make the cut involved former coach Terry Wallace in the change rooms after a loss to Hawthorn in Launceston.
“I thought I was going okay. It was when the ‘G-Train’ (Fraser Gehrig) and I started calling myself the ‘P-Train’. I’d taken mark of the week three weeks in a row and changed it to the ‘P-Plane’,” he said.
“I’d played well in the Launceston game, kicked three and had 28. I sat at the front near Terry, whereas I would usually sit down the back with Richo.
“Terry was tearing strips off everyone and I thought I was going to get a pump up. That didn’t happen.”
Richardson didn’t play when Pettifer debuted against Sydney in round 12, 2001. The Kyabram recruit had three kicks and one goal, but not with his first kick — it was his second.
“I came on and got my first kick within 20 seconds. I kicked it to Paul Broderick and he kicked it back to me and I kicked a goal,” Pettifer said.
The Tigers won by 26 points and Pettifer played with Richo the next week, kicking four between them, the teenager with three of those.
Pettifer and Richardson finished in the same year, at 27 and 34-years-old respectively — Pettifer with 113 games and 132 goals in nine seasons. His good mate had played 282 games and kicked 800 goals.
Of Richardson’s much publicised on-field demeanour, Pettifer said it looked much worse than it actually was.
“He used to blow up at everyone, but he made us all work hard. In that three-year stetch from 2005-07, he and Kane Johnson helped me play my best footy,” he said.
As the retirement announcements come in thick and fast, Pettifer admitted he was finding it “hard to let go’’.
“I love the game and the club so much. It is tough to say goodbye,” he said.
Pettifer said his age — he turns 42 next year — and output, along with having a business and family in Melbourne and the inconsistent year of the team, all pointed to an obvious choice. But he just hadn’t been able to pull the plug.
Members of Pettifer’s draft class of 2000 are all long gone, even from the country football circuit, his name being called out following the likes of Nick Riewoldt, Justin Koschitzke and Alan Didak.
The last survivor, at AFL level at least, of that draft year was Hawthorn’s Shaun Burgoyne (chosen at number 12), who retired only two years ago with 407 games to his name.
“I played with Kozzy (Koschitshke) at the Bushrangers and stay in touch with him and Nick (Riewoldt), because we had the same manager for a while,” Pettifer said.
“Everyone says I am mad.”
Pettifer said while he probably won’t be convinced to go on somewhere else if he breaks his long connection to Kyabram, he does harbour a plan to salute his father, who died well before his time in 2009.
“I’d love to finish at Ky, but I may play a few games here and there at other clubs,” he said.
“My best mate (Craig Kellow) is at Nathalia and I haven’t got to spend as much time with him as I would like.
“I wouldn’t make a full-time commitment to a club, but I always said I would play at Merrigum, to honour dad, at some stage.”
His father was a much-loved member of the Bulldogs family and Pettifer even came close to pulling on the boots in a cameo appearance with the club this year when Collingwood champion and Brownlow medallist Dane Swan made a guest appearance with the club.
“I’ve been chatting with ‘Parky’ and I wouldn’t close down on a cameo or two at some stage, maybe even wearing Dad’s number 25,” he said.
Pettifer has kicked 15 goals in 11 games with the Bombers this season, including two bags of four, but admits he isn’t anywhere near producing what he did in his final four games at AFL level.
Pettifer had 20 disposals, playing on a wing, in his only four games of 2010 before snapping his ACL and then splitting his kneecap on his return.
Football wasn’t at the top of Pettifer’s priority list at the end of his AFL career, having just lost his father.
“I am really grateful that i got to spend those last couple of weeks with Dad when I was back in Kyabram recovering from injury,” he said.
He was almost thrown a lifeline by Kevin Sheedy and GWS in 2011 when they convinced him to play with East Perth in the West Australian Football League in an attempt to convince the fledgling AFL club that he could offer some support to its teenage ranks.
“In the end, I decided to come back to Victoria,” he said.
Pettifer stays connected to the AFL by using his close mate Richardson’s AFL Life Member tickets
“I get to eight or 10 games a year. I get Richo’s tickets round one and give them back in round 24,” he said.
“I’ve even tagged along to a few of the AFL Hall of Fame dinners with him.
“I think the likes of (Mark) Riccuito, (Michael) O’Loughlin, (Nathan) Buckley and (Matthew) Lloyd look at me funny when I’m sitting at the same table, but it is great to hear the stories.”
Things could have been different for Pettifer, given he and his father’s devotion to Carlton before he joined the Tigers.
Carlton was planning to take Pettifer at pick number four in the 2000 AFL draft, but changed its mind and informed him if he was still there at number 11 it would snap him up.
“I was training with Carlton up until that and was keen to play with them, considering my idol was Greg Williams and he was working at the club,” he said, explaining he had even named his dog Diesel after the Brownlow medallist.
“Dad was coming down regularly during that time and he used to idolise those blokes.”
That will make having Koutoufides and Christou in the same room on August 26 even more enjoyable for the 41-year-old.
He played against Koutoufides for the first time in 2003 when the Blues legend had 31 possessions and 10 clearances.
“I remember tackling ‘Kouta’ and he kept running for three or four steps with me hanging off him,” he said.
The legendary Carlton friends have been engaged for the evening by long-time Kyabram support Tony De Pasquale and Richardson, the latter being a regular at Christou’s Northcote cafe.
Pettifer may not need too much prompting to share stories of his glittering career.
And there is plenty to talk about, including his 2000 Larke Medal win.
It was the same year that he won the Bushrangers’ best-and-fairest award, then kicked four goals for Vic Country in the second half of the state championships final against Vic Metro to get the nod as the carnival’s best player
He finished with 10 goals for the carnival.
Then there is him sharing the limelight with another Kyabram product, Brett Deledio, who was taken at number one at the 2004 AFL draft.
Pettifer kicked three goals in Deledio’s first game, which the Tigers lost by 62 points.
He may also offer an opinion on Harley Reid and all the fanfare that has followed the Tongala product, whose sisters play netball with the Bombers.
“I’ve seen him around when he comes to watch his sisters, but I couldn’t imagine what he is going through with all the publicity,” Pettifer said
“West Coast had pick five and Adelaide had an early pick as well in my draft year.
“I was a country boy and I told them that I would struggle with homesickness.
“The GM of West Coast flew over to Victoria and drove up to Kyabram to speak with Mum, Dad and I.
“Mum told him she wasn’t too sure about me going to Perth. I told him I was grateful, but I wasn’t sure the move to Perth was for me.”
Fast-forward to Pettifer’s 2010 Kyabram return (an 83 goals-22 game season) and it is where the tone of his voice changes.
“I was keen to come back. I got really fit and wanted to impress,” he said.
“It was a great year, we had the best team on paper but didn’t put it together on grand final day.
“It was great to play with my mates. ‘Dirty’ (former coach David Williams) and Paul Newman (current coach) had a huge influence on me.”
After the East Perth experiement and a short time at Montmorency, organised by current Stanhope coach Mark Adamson, Pettifer landed at Yarrawonga in the much-publicised Brendan Fevola era from 2013-15.
“The Fev show was amazing. We had 8000 to 9000 people there on public holiday weekends and won the flag,” he said.
“It was my first ever premiership in 2013 and we had the-10 year reunion this year.
“I loved those years and we should have gotten more out of it. We lost the grand final in 2014 by a goal and in 2015 we lost the preliminary final.”
Back-to-back premierships with Kyabram in 2016-17 were accompanied by 177 goals in 40 games and then Pettifer kicked 106 goals in 2018.
“Those back-to-back years at Ky I had never seen a more closer-knit footy club,” he said
Pettifer said if not for the COVID-19 pandemic, his football boots may have already been in mothballs, but the cancelled 2020 season and shortened 2021 season allowed him to play on.
But with his third child, Mila, joining Saskia, 5, and Giselle, who turns four this week, on July 1, along with a commitment to growing his NSTA Construction Training company and managing his other business interest, the Bungalow Hotel and Baby Nightclub at Ringwood, it means retirement is not far away.
Pettifer said the family expectations of his pending retirement were shared by mother Sally, elder brother and widely respected umpire Drew and sisters Sara and Abby.
“The decision was extended when everyone was staying (at Kyabram) in 2020. We were looking great in the pre-season of 2020 and I guess I am still chasing that success,” he said.
What life after football will look like for a still very “hyperactive’’ Pettifer is still uncertain — slowing down doesn’t seem to be a character trait he has in any great amount.
He has tested the waters of professional boxing, winning all three of his bouts, and said if something like the recently cancelled AFL Fight Night popped up he would probably jump in.
For now, though, it will be the once-a-week running session with his old mate from the goal square at the MCG, the occasional boxing class and his weekend commitment to Kyabram Football Netball Club that are his focus.
Long may we see the name K. Pettifer in the GV Weekender, or maybe even out at Merrigum. Who knows?
Kyabram Free Press and Campaspe Valley News editor