“I was pretty stiff”: How Cripps decision made ex-Roo feel deserving of Brownlow glory

North Melbourne great Corey McKernan has reflected on missing out on winning the Brownlow Medal in 1996.

While McKernan finished on 21 votes, the same as dual-winners Michael Voss and James Hird, he was ruled ineligible due to a one-week suspension earlier in the year for kneeing Geelong’s John Barnes.

Looking back, McKernan has never felt like he was hard done by to miss out on the medal, that was until Carlton’s Patrick Cripps had a two-week ban overturned on a technicality last year to win a Brownlow himself.

McKernan feels that he and Chris Grant – who missed out on the following year due to suspension – now have the right to feel unlucky not to be remembered as a Brownlow winner.

“I would say you’d classify it (my action) as clumsy,” McKernan told SEN’s This Is Your Journey – thanks to Tobin Brothers.

“Have I seen many players do it over the journey since? Yes, I have.

“I think for the first time what had happened with Patty Cripps last year, that was the first time ever I’ve thought, ‘Yeah, I was pretty stiff’, I’ve never said that before.

“But when you see someone get two weeks and they get off (like Cripps), but then you see someone get one week (like myself) – that was for the first time ever I thought we were a little bit stiff.

“When I say, ‘We’, I talk about me and Chris Grant because we copped one week.

“We’re not going to be in the category when we go out and maliciously do the wrong thing.

“I’ve never ever thought that before, I thought, ‘Oh well, you’d cop the week (previously)’.”

While he missed out on a Brownlow, McKernan says he is far more proud of how he dealt with the week and his performance in that year’s Grand Final than he ever could have been with the medal.

“I’ve always been more proud about the way I handled the entire (Grand Final) week of 1996,” McKernan said.

“As a 22 year-old, I essentially had the whole planet thrown at me.

“I had my knee, I had the Brownlow, I had all of these things … I could have easily gotten to the Saturday and turned my toes up and not played well.

“To come out in the Grand Final, and to have 31 possessions playing in the ruck as a Grand Final.

“That’s bigger and better than actually winning the Brownlow Medal (for me) by a mile.”

McKernan retired in 2004 with 237 senior games to his name.

196 of those came with North Melbourne where he was a two-time premiership player, AFL MVP and All-Australian recipient.