At his best, the 28-year-old can monster opposition defenders. Just look at the way he used Brisbane Lions defender Matt Maguire as a stepladder to pluck his speccy in the first quarter of last Saturday night's game at the Gabba.

But on the other side of the circular white line, Petrie’s personality is almost diametrically opposed to his on-field persona. It’s a side into which Petrie’s father, Trevor, Roos skipper Brent Harvey and former captain Adam Simpson gave the AFL Record an insight.

The Petrie most of us don’t see is shy, Trevor Petrie says.

He says as a five-year-old starting prep at Ballarat Grammar School, Petrie had been so shy he had gone hungry rather than telling his teachers he couldn’t figure out how to remove the plastic wrapping from the sandwiches his mother, Sue, had packed in his lunchbox.

This went on for about two weeks before Sue worked out why Petrie was so hungry when he got home from school each day.

In fairness to Petrie, Trevor says those sandwiches would not have been easy to unwrap: “My wife’s a fastidious person, so she would have wrapped and rewrapped them in a hygienically sealed way.”

But Trevor says Petrie’s shyness persists to this day.

“Sure, he can now represent the club on the radio or talk in front of a camera and do it quite well,” Trevor says.

“But a lot of the time he’d still much rather hide behind a fence post than talk to anyone.”

Then there’s Petrie’s indecision. Harvey and Simpson say it’s an intrinsic part of his make-up, so much so it has become an in-house joke at Aegis Park.

“You’ll be sitting there in a leadership meeting and you’ll say ‘What do you think, ‘Drewy’? Do you agree or disagree?’” Harvey says.

“And he’ll go, ‘No, I agree, but I sort of know where he’s coming from as well. But I know what you’re saying’.

“So the funny thing is he’ll never give you a straight answer. You leave thinking, ‘What did Drewy end up telling me?’

Simpson agrees, saying Petrie’s “the biggest fence-sitter you’ll ever see”.

As for Petrie being a nerd, Simpson and Harvey are again in agreement, although Simpson - light-heartedly - applies the label more colourfully.

Read the full interview in this weekend’s AFL Record, available at all matches.