{"id":314378,"date":"2023-07-07T07:27:42","date_gmt":"2023-07-07T07:27:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=314378"},"modified":"2023-07-07T12:59:01","modified_gmt":"2023-07-07T12:59:01","slug":"a-joke-power-forward-laughs-off-trade-rumours","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=314378","title":{"rendered":"'A joke': Power forward laughs off trade rumours"},"content":{"rendered":"

Out of favour Port Adelaide forward Orazio Fantasia<\/a> has laughed off reports linking him with a trade back to Essendon<\/a>, saying he "thought it was a joke" when he was contacted by a reporter this week.<\/p>\n

The Age's Sam McClure reported this week<\/a> that the ex-Bomber was keen on a move back to the club where he began his AFL journey after an injury-stricken stint at Port Adelaide.<\/p>\n

However, Fantasia downplayed talk of a Bombers reunion, saying he thought he'd been pranked by a teammate when he was contacted by McClure regarding a move back to Tullamarine.<\/p>\n

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"I actually thought it was a joke because I got a message from Sam (McClure) who was writing the article saying he'd spoken to my manager Michael (Doughty) – who's no longer my manager \u2013 and (saying) I'm going to write the story," Fantasia said on FiveAA radio.<\/p>\n

\"Orazio<\/p>\n

"I thought it was one of the boys taking the piss out of me. It wasn't, it's gone everywhere so that was a bit of a laugh."<\/p>\n

But his future is still uncertain, with the 27-year-old\ufeff playing just three AFL level games so far in 2023 for the second-placed Power as he struggles with both form and injury issues.<\/p>\n

"I know where I want to be but I'm also realistic to know that I haven't played enough football at Port Adelaide for them to be dishing me a four-year contract, which is where I want to play footy," he said.<\/p>\n

All Fantasia wants to do is see out the season, hoping to find a spot in the competitive Port forward line.<\/p>\n

"I'm just focusing on getting back and playing footy and hopefully I can help in the back end of the year and the contract will take care of itself," he said.<\/p>\n

\"Orazio<\/p>\n

The South Australian-born livewire didn't want to look too far into his playing future, but knows where he wants to remain.<\/p>\n

"I want to be in Adelaide, that's the biggest thing. I moved back here for a reason, my family is here," Fantasia said.<\/p>\n

"But I'm a realist, as I said before, football is football."<\/p>\n

Port Adelaide \ufeffand coach Ken Hinkley have thrown their support behind the unlucky forward, with Fantasia saying they are doing everything they can to get him back to full fitness.<\/p>\n

"Kenny and I had a good chat about this even yesterday, he said, 'We want you here, we just need you to play', and I said exactly the same thing," Fantasia said.<\/p>\n

The Power host the 13th-placed Gold Coast Suns on Saturday night at Adelaide Oval.\ufeff<\/p>\n

For a daily dose of the best of the breaking news and exclusive content from Wide World of Sports, subscribe to our newsletter by<\/strong><\/em> clicking here<\/strong><\/em><\/a>!<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Out of favour Port Adelaide forward Orazio Fantasia has laughed off reports linking him with a trade back to Essendon, saying he "thought it was […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":314380,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/314378"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=314378"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/314378\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":314383,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/314378\/revisions\/314383"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/314380"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=314378"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=314378"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=314378"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}