Kane Cornes and David King were impressed with the Carlton midfield after a strong display against Melbourne on Thursday night.
The Blues ran out five-point winners against the Demons and impressed all over the ground, but the headlines will centre around the club’s impressive on-ball performances.
Patrick Cripps (30 disposals, four goals) was back to his best, while Matthew Kennedy (37 disposals, nine marks) showed his potential is right up there.
Those two combined with recruits George Hewett (33 disposals and seven clearances) and Adam Cerra (30 disposals, four tackles), and suddenly Carlton has a genuine advantage in the midfield.
What’s more impressive is that Melbourne chose their first-class midfield, rolling out Clayton Oliver, Jack Viney, Christian Petracca and Max Gawn in the centre.
Cornes and King discussed the Blues on SEN Breakfast.
Cornes: “I like the new shape of the midfield, and when I say shape, they’re bigger and they’re thicker through the midfield.”
“Kennedy, Cerra, Hewett, Cripps, that’s a bigger, thicker midfield for me, and they can go in there with Oliver and Petracca and match it.
“I was really impressed last night, particularly with the hunger they showed through the midfield. And their want and I think desire to take some risks with the footy, and they were quite slick with their ball movement.
“I thought it was a terrific performance from the Blues, and you don’t want to get carried away because it’s Carlton and we’ve got carried away in the past, but on what you would have asked them to deliver on Thursday night and what they produced, I wouldn’t have thought you could be much better.”
King: “Smashed them (Melbourne) at the contest didn’t they? Absolutely mauled them at clearances, and I hadn’t seen that for a while against the Demons.”
“We know they genuinely go into the stoppages one man short, but we’re talking about centre bounce clearances, four on four, they (Mellbourne) were disorganised, the number of times they (Carlton) got direct free kicks from centre bounce, I hadn’t seen that before.
“They were up against Melbourne’s prime midfield group so there’s no excuses there. They brained them in there. Hewett was terrific in the first half, Outside of stoppage I think Kennedy was the best midfielder on the ground, but inside of traffic and the full game, I thought Cripps was terrific and Hewett had a day.”
Meanwhile, as good as the other trio were, the standout was the captain, Cripps.
The 26-year-old’s 2021 season was statistically his worse since his second year in the system (barring the shortened quarters in 2020). Not only was he carrying a back injury for much of the season, there were concerns Cripps position had become “redundant”.
A strong inside bull, Cripps isn’t quick and as the game sped up, there were concerns the three-time wouldn’t grow with it.
However, his performance on Thursday followed on from a dynamic performance against St Kilda last week, and it might be enough to suggest the skipper is back to his best.
“I want to talk to the Carlton fans, because I think they haven’t seen structure for their team for quite some time. We talk about right pieces, right holes, we’ve got the small forwards just putting on forward pressure,” King said.
“They don’t have to be the best players in the competition, they don’t have to be Marc Murphy, doesn’t have to be Paddy Dow because he’s not getting a game, if you’re not a pressuring forward, you’re not playing pressuring forward roles.
“When you’ve got structure your role players don’t have to do a lot, they just have to fill the gaps in between the parts of the game where the stars aren’t dominant.
“But the stars were dominant last night, Cripps looked terrific.
“There’s a lot of talk about Cripps over the last 18 months that his position is redundant, that big-bodied, clearance-winning midfielder, once they’ve won the clearance what are they doing for you? Well, he was terrific last night.”
Cornes believes Cripps has changed his game over the off-season.
“Well the thing he did last night, and I’ve had my criticism over Patrick Cripps because he’s been a handball first player, and that is okay, but his instinct has been to look sideways for a handball,” Cornes stated.
“His explosion forward out of the stoppage… he kicked four goals and he can do that.”
Sam Walsh did not feature in the clash after suffering a syndesmosis injury two weeks ago, and he will further bolster the club’s midfield stocks when he returns early in the season.