Bryce Gibbs has been answering our questions for 20-odd minutes when a Carlton official appears to wind up the interview.

The Blues have been training at Southport on the Gold Coast, the session is long finished and he's the only man upon whom the team bus is still waiting. But Gibbs isn't finished.

"Don't make them wait for me," he tells the official politely. "I'd rather do this properly."

It's just on two months since Gibbs' request for a trade home to Adelaide after just two years of a five-year contract has been stymied. But the Carlton on-baller has plenty he wants to get off his chest. And in an exclusive interview with Fairfax Media, the first since the drama blew up, he does.

About the reasons for his aborted shift to the Crows and the circumstances behind it. About the hurt he and his partner Lauren have felt at the misinformation spread in the aftermath. And about his commitment to the club at which he remains.

"I feel sorry for Lauren," he says of his long-time partner, with whom he has an 18-month-old son, Charlie. "She was copping all sorts of stick … [the suggestion] that she couldn't handle being a young mum, when actually, she's been a star and handled it really well.

"It's probably the first time I've seen her a bit edgy and wanting to bite back at a few things on social media, usually she's pretty calm and collected. Something I need to get across is that this was a family decision, but probably pushed more so by me than it was her."

So why does a long-term player, a key part of his side's future, suddenly decide to up and leave? Well, that's myth No.1, says Gibbs. This was anything but sudden.

"It's something we'd both spoken about for probably 12 months," he says. "It wasn't like we just woke up in trade period and said, 'we want to get out of here'. It was a conversation we'd had for over a year."

About what? "It was a couple of reasons. A bit to do with family. We've got a young one at home, and as all families know, that can be pretty testing at times." Particularly for two still relatively young parents without a support network around them, both families in Adelaide.

What else? "I've got a few things going on in my life that I'm going through as well, so we just thought for where we are right now as a family, that we wanted to be around close family and friends, and if a trade happened, we thought that was the best move for us as a family right now."

Gibbs isn't keen to elaborate much on those "few things". But they're not as dramatic as some of the more distasteful rumours that have circulated on social media.

"They're just a few personal things that I was going through and working through. Everything's going to be OK, but we just thought for this next time of our life, we wanted to be around immediate family."

Adelaide blew Gibbs' intent to shift back home open to public discussion when trade period commenced.

"I don't know why they wanted to do that, I was unaware that was going to happen," he says. "Whether it worked in their favour or not, I'm not sure. But it was going to come out eventually."

That apparent bombshell, however, sparked widespread belief that Carlton had been completely blindsided. But again, says Gibbs, it's one that was not correct. "I'd met with the club the week before trade period, and laid all my cards on the table," he says.

Present were Gibbs' manager Nigel Carmody, Carlton chief executive Steven Trigg, football manager Andrew McKay and list manager Stephen Silvagni. Gibbs had also told his closest friends at Carlton, captain Marc Murphy, Kade Simpson and Simon White.

"They [the officials] were obviously a bit shocked and took a bit of time to digest it. They didn't want me to go, but they respected my decision. They were happy to facilitate a trade, but it had to be the right one and they weren't going to go out of their way to get something done. Whoever wanted that trade had to come to them with a pretty significant deal and while they were happy to do it, they weren't going to go and push for it. But they made that clear from the start."

But after weeks of bartering, Adelaide never really came close to satisfying Carlton's requirements. And the conclusion to the drawn-out saga was for Gibbs complicated by the fact that as trade period concluded, he was on a flight to the United States for a holiday with half-a-dozen of what for all he knew, might now be former teammates.

"We actually landed in New Zealand about an hour-and-a-half after the deadline, and that's when I found out," he recalls.

"Obviously, I had a whole heap of messages and phone calls. I rang my manager first, then my family, and then the footy club. Part of me thought it had happened … just looking back at history, situations like that find a way to get done, so it was a little bit of … 'hang on'.

"I had to take a few minutes to process it all, but once I got on the phone and spoke to all the people I needed to, I was comfortable."

The sceptics have had trouble being convinced Gibbs really is comfortable now having to return to the club from which he sought out. But he believes the explanation as to that apparent state of mind is simple.

"I will stress, this was not a football decision at all. And I think that's why the transition coming back to the club has been so smooth. Really, it's been easy."

"Through the whole process, there's been open and honest dialogue from me to the club and from the club back, and when it's like that, everyone's on the same page, and whatever it comes to, both parties know exactly what's going on and how to handle it, everyone's happy. When it came to me staying, there were phone calls straight away, catch-ups, and it was, 'righto, back to business as usual'."

And if you needed any further convincing of Gibbs' total commitment to the Carlton cause, you only need to listen to him speak about the rebuilding of a club of which he is now a 200-game player and life member.

Much of that time has coincided with some dark days for the Blues, but again, Gibbs sees not just light at the end of the tunnel, but genuine hope of something substantial sooner than later. He knows Carlton has had a few false dawns since their last flag, now more than 20 years ago. But he's convinced this latest rebranding, under the auspices of Trigg and coach Brendon Bolton, isn't another.

"It's the real deal now," he says. "It's not just about having words on a wall any more. Everything's got meaning and substance behind it. What we say we're held accountable to more than ever, whereas in the past you could probably get away with it if you weren't living up to those expectations and those standards.

"It probably would be fair to say that along the way, leaders of our club weren't living those standards high enough either, so over the past couple of years we've really had a good look at ourselves and worked out a journey, and we're having a good bloody go at it.

Gibbs concedes he, too, has been guilty at times of not walking the walk. "I was coming back only two or three seasons ago probably a bit overweight in terms of skinfolds, but thinking I was in good condition. Just having the right people in place who can say, 'no, that's not how you do things, reach for the stars a bit more'. That's when you start getting gains quickly."

The enthusiasm for the Blues' immediate future is obvious. And Gibbs doesn't need to say a lot more about how the post-season panned out.

He's done the interview properly, all right. And you'd have short odds of him handling the actual business of season 2017 in a similarly professional manner.