‘I was a mess’: Deledio reveals prelim heartbreakAl Paton,
Herald Sun
19 Sep 2019A raw Brett Deledio has revealed he apologised to his wife after Richmond defeated his new club GWS in the 2017 preliminary final.
He repeated the apology “10 times” after the Tigers won the flag the year after Deledio left Punt Rd following 12 seasons in yellow and black.
The retiring Giants midfielder has opened up about a brutal three years that included the prelim final heartbreak, repeated soft-tissue injuries and family tragedy including losing a two-year-old nephew to a rare form of brain cancer.
He has also had to say goodbye to his grandfather, aunty Trish (who he regarded as “a second mum”) and sister-in-law Sara in that time.
“I remember as soon as the siren went (in the prelim) it hit me, just the enormity of everything, and then I saw my family after it and I said, ‘I’m so sorry’. I was a bit of a mess,” Deledio says on an interview that will screen tonight on Fox Footy’s On The Mark.
“It (the bad news) just kept on coming. On the Tuesday we got news that little (nephew) Alfie, would you believe, that he had brain cancer as well. A two-year-old, that’s not meant to happen, is it? They found a pear-shaped tumour in his brain ... a one in three million chance.
“I talk about it being unfair with a footy final, how is this fair?”
Deledio wiped away tears as he recounted Grand Final day 2017, when he went to the park to escape his Richmond ghosts, only to run into a man watching the match on his phone.
“I remember checking my phone ... I had almost convinced myself that it was too unfair for it to happen, for them to win without me after everything that I’d gone through and done, for it to be the year later, I was like, ‘That can’t possibly happen’,” he said.
“I remember it just broke my heart.
“That scene in The Simpsons when you can see Ralph’s heart break — that was me.
“I think I apologised Katie 10 times in the next 20 minutes, I said, ‘I’m so sorry for dragging you up here’ ... She said, ‘Don’t you dare’. I was saying this with tears running down my face, I was just angry, because it just felt so unfair.
“I know that’s probably going to cause a stir and everyone will say, ‘You had the choice’, but I did what I thought was right at the time for my own mental state of mind.”
Deledio said he made the tough decision to leave the Tigers after a 2016 season in which the club won just eight games after making the finals in the three previous years.
“I thought, ‘Right, ’16 is the year, here we go, we’re going to launch here’, and I did my quad about two weeks from Round 1.
After a demoralising loss to Port Adelaide, he said: “I remember driving home in the car just thinking, ‘Where is this going?’ ... tears just started pouring down, (I was thinking) ‘I don’t know how much longer I can do this for, we’re supposed to be better than this’.
“I had fallen out of love with the game.”
https://www.heraldsun.com.au/sport/afl/teams/richmond/brett-deledio-speaks-about-his-footy-heartache-family-tragedy/news-story/475dadf2ff04e978d68b54219fb6c199