Details of Brisbane Lions captain Dayne Zorko’s controversial past have resurfaced following his vile sledge towards Melbourne Demons player Harrison Petty during Friday’s match.
Following the game, won by the Demons, it was revealed Petty had been brought to tears at three-quarter time by a hurtful comment made by Zorko.
The Herald Sun’s Mark Robinson wrote Zorko had told Petty something like: “I hope your mother dies.”
Robinson added: “Zorko is a classic case of white line fever. It is said he is a decent bloke off the field, but on it, and as we’ve all seen, he becomes crazily competitive.”
The AFL investigated the incident, while the Lions and Zorko issued apologies and the Demons and Petty appeared eager to put the incident behind them.
Zorko’s ugly split after pic leaked
It’s not the first time Zorko has made headlines over unsavoury conduct, with his former long-term girlfriend Kalinda Salla in 2019 exposing ugly details of their relationship breakdown.
The couple, who share a son Louis, split at the end of 2018 after three years together.
In an interview with Mummy Republic Podcast host Dannii Reed, Ms Salla confessed to posting an image to social media of Zorko asleep on the couch in his underwear.
She had captioned the unfortunate image with words hinting at a less-than-amicable split.
“Thank goodness I know your passcode Dayne so I could see why you actually didn’t care about leaving me,” part of the caption claimed.
Ms Salla’s admission was one of several shocking revelations the pharmacist graduate made. She revealed that around the time of the split she also lost a friend.
“It all sort of happened at once,” she said. “One of my friends sadly passed away, which was very devastating, and at the exact same time, I also split with my long-term partner and also my baby daddy, so there was quite a lot of things going on at once and it was quite stressful.”
She said she had no regrets about posting the photograph although she “deleted it a few hours later”.
“But sadly someone screen-shotted it and it went viral and the next day it was in the newspaper and the day after that it was in the newspaper again and I ended up in the paper for a few weeks,” Ms Salla said.
At the same time she was dealing with the public fallout to her relationship breakdown the pair also sold their Brisbane home with a quick settlement which meant she had to move out within one month, just a few days before Christmas.
Ms Salla said her relationship with Zorko had been strained for three years leading into their separation and that they were not “in a happy space”.
“We just fought all the time, we weren’t in a happy space … it just wasn’t a happy house,” she said. “Dayne and I had fallen out of love long before the break-up.”
At the time, Ms Salla hoped to encourage other women in strained relationships not to stay together simply because it was easy.
Controversial moments on the field
Zorko was previously involved in a heated rivalry with Gold Coast Suns player Touk Miller, who claimed in 2019 he had been personally targeted by the Brisbane player.
Tension between the two flared after the siren in a match that saw Miller awarded the Marcus Ashcroft Medal as best afield.
Zorko snubbed Miller’s handshake and following a later game, Zorko unleashed a verbal barrage onto the young midfielder.
The pair ended up shaking hands, but afterwards Zorko oddly followed Miller around the field with his hand extended.
“In the past two games I’ve had his measure, but no game is easy, the battle will be great and I look forward to it,” Miller said after the match.
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“And it is not just him, the whole team comes after me.”
On another occasion, Zorko was called out for shoving Port Adelaide player Kane Farrell into the Brisbane sideline bench during a match in February 2020.
The force of Farrell’s collision caused a female Brisbane trainer to be crushed. She was fortunately able to return to her feet and was assisted off the field.
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