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Something old, new, borrowed & blue from Rd. 13

SOMETHING OLD

A McKernan in the ruck.

It’s been almost 20 years since Corey McKernan was voted the game’s most valuable player by his peers. On Saturday, his brother Shaun had 21 possessions, 18 hitouts and a goal playing as Essendon’s number one ruckman.

If his performance on the weekend is anything to go by, it’s something we’re likely to see for the remainder of the season.

SOMETHING NEW

In recent years, teams playing Carlton have weighed up whether to tag Judd, Murphy or Gibbs.

For the first time, it was young gun Patrick Cripps who copped the most attention. Though his output was slightly down on previous performances – Sunday’s match was the first time in a month where the 20-year-old had less than 25 disposals – Carlton coach John Barker said Cripps would be better for it.

“He gets educated on what that looks like, he gets to learn how to cope with that, and he starts to work out mechanisms on how to deal with those situations,” Barker said.

SOMETHING BORROWED

There were a few moves borrowed from the English Premier League over the weekend.

First, big man Ivan Maric kicked a penalty-type goal from inside the goal square to seal victory for Richmond on Friday night.

Then on Saturday night, St Kilda’s Jack Steven found a new way to bend it like Beckham.

SOMETHING BLUE

Round 13 finished with a Carlton win over Gold Coast, meaning it was the Suns who were left with the blues.

Plenty of footy ‘experts’ had high hopes for the Suns in 2015, with some even considering them a top-four smokey. Their fortunes haven’t turned around since the infamous Brent Macaffer tackle in Round 16 last year. The Suns have played 19 games since then, and won only two.

But every cloud has a silver lining; Gary Ablett appears ready to take on the Kangaroos this Saturday. Silver linings don’t come much brighter than that.