AS PATRICK Cripps readies for game No.250 for the Carlton Football Club, Stephen Kernahan and Anthony Koutoufides - two of the 13 Carlton players to have achieved that 250-game milestone - are in no doubt the current captain can hit 300.
Kernahan, Carlton’s longest-serving on-field leader through 251 games in 12 seasons, and Koutoufides, a 278-gamer through 16, both believe Cripps can join Craig Bradley, Bruce Doull, Kade Simpson, John Nicholls, Stephen Silvagni and Marc Murphy in Carlton’s coveted 300 Club.
“Yeah, I think he’ll get to 300,” Kernahan said of Cripps. “Between games 200 and 250 he’s won a Brownlow, and whenever he’s copped a query or question mark I feel there’s a BOG coming on.
“He’s fit, he looks lean and mean, and when Carlton is going better it helps. He’s got Georgey Hewett alongside, (Cody) Walker coming in will make him feel younger and he can of course sneak up forward.
“He’s won two Brownlows of course, but I know what he wants more than anything – and five goals up in a prelim he would have dared to dream. He’s been a star and I love him.”
In reflecting on his own on-field career, Koutoufides conceded that he knew he wouldn’t reach the 300-game milestone as his final season of 2007 rolled around.
“Those last games after my 250th became both physically and mentally tough, because we weren’t performing well,” Koutoufides recalled.
“But Patrick will get there. He’s only 31 and still playing really good footy, whereas I was 34 when I hung them up.”
Having led Carlton to two Grand Final victories in his time at the top, Kernahan is mindful of the difficult years for team and club through Cripps’ on-field tenure.
“As he said: “Patrick must be very tired because he’s carried the Club on his shoulders”.
“He’s been a star on the field and as everyone who’s met him will say, he’s a star off it,” Kernahan said. “He is a humble, empathetic person who always has time for people, and in good times and in bad we’ve been very lucky to have him.”
