Corey McKernan (born 19 December 1973) is a former

Australian rules football Australian football, also called Australian rules football or Aussie rules, or more simply football or footy, is a contact sport played between two teams of 18 players on an oval field, often a modified cricket ground. Points are scored by k ...

er who played for the

North Melbourne Kangaroos The North Melbourne Football Club, nicknamed the Kangaroos, is a professional Australian rules football club. The men's team competes in the Australian Football League (AFL), and the women's team in the AFL Women's (AFLW). The Kangaroos also ...

and Carlton Blues in the

Australian Football League The Australian Football League (AFL) is the only fully professional competition of Australian rules football. Through the AFL Commission, the AFL also serves as the sport's governing body and is responsible for controlling the laws of the gam ...

(AFL). A dual Premiership player a one time

All Australian The All-Australian team is an all-star team of Australian rules footballers, selected by a panel at the end of each season. It represents a complete team, including an interchange bench, of the best-performed players during the season, led by ...

at North Melbourne and one time club best and fairest winner and leading goal kicker at Carlton, McKernan was at one time considered to be one of the very best players in the country. He is the older brother to Shaun McKernan who played with Adelaide Crows, Essendon and St Kilda.

Early years

McKernan grew up in

Melbourne Melbourne ( ; Boonwurrung/Woiwurrung: ''Narrm'' or ''Naarm'') is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Victoria, and the second-most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Its name generally refers to a met ...

's western suburbs and was recruited to North Melbourne from Westmeadows Football Club in the

Essendon District Football League The Essendon District Football League (EDFL) is a professional Australian rules football league competition based in Essendon, Victoria, consisting of teams based in the north-west suburbs of Melbourne. Founded in 1930, the men's competition c ...

as a 197 cm, 105 kg mobile ruckman, prior to the

1993 AFL season The 1993 AFL season was the 97th season of the Australian Football League (AFL), the highest level senior Australian rules football competition in Australia, which was known as the Victorian Football League until 1989. The season featured fifte ...

. In his first season at AFL level, he played just one game, a loss to St Kilda in round 17.

North Melbourne

1994

The following year,

1994 File:1994 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The 1994 Winter Olympics are held in Lillehammer, Norway; The Kaiser Permanente building after the 1994 Northridge earthquake; A model of the MS Estonia, which Sinking of the MS Estonia, sank in ...

, McKernan had an impressive start to his

AFL AFL may refer to: Sports * American Football League (AFL), a name shared by several separate and unrelated professional American football leagues: ** American Football League (1926) (a.k.a. "AFL I"), first rival of the National Football Leagu ...

Career, after being elevated by coach

Denis Pagan Denis Leslie Pagan (born 24 September 1947) is a former Australian rules football coach and player in the VFL/AFL. Pagan is a dual AFL premiership coach, and he also won the prestigious Victoria derby in 2020 as a trainer and owner of the horse ...

to the starting line up. He quickly gained a reputation as a mobile and agile ruckman who was a strong over head mark and potent part-time forward. At the end of the season he polled the most votes in the Norwich Rising Star award, but was ineligible to win the award due to a suspension he received earlier in the year.

1996

After another solid season in

1995 File:1995 Events Collage V2.png, From left, clockwise: O.J. Simpson is O. J. Simpson murder case, acquitted of the murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman from the 1994, year prior in "The Trial of the Century" in the United States; The ...

in which he continued to improve, McKernan took his game to new level in

1996 File:1996 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: A Centennial Olympic Park bombing, bomb explodes at Centennial Olympic Park in Atlanta, set off by a radical Anti-abortion violence, anti-abortionist; The center fuel tank explodes on TWA Flight 8 ...

. Alternating between the ruck and forward line, McKernan was dominant, often turning games with his high leap, ability to regularly take contested marks and long kicking. Not to be overshadowed by his superstar captain

Wayne Carey Wayne Francis Carey (born 27 May 1971) is a former Australian rules footballer who played with the North Melbourne Football Club and Adelaide Football Club in the Australian Football League (AFL). A dual-premiership captain at North Melbou ...

, at season's end the

AFL Players Association The AFL Players Association (AFL PA, also simply known as AFL Players) is the representative body for all current and past professional Australian Football League (AFL) and AFL Women's (AFLW) players. The AFL PA promotes and protects its membe ...

awarded him with the

Most Valuable Player In team sports, a most valuable player award, abbreviated 'MVP award', is an honor typically bestowed upon an individual (or individuals, in the instance of a tie) whose individual performance is the greatest in an entire league, for a particu ...

award (now known as the Leigh Matthews Trophy). Disappointingly for McKernan however, history repeated itself in 1996 when he polled the equal-most votes in the game's highest individual honour, the

Brownlow Medal The Charles Brownlow Trophy, better known as the Brownlow Medal (and informally as "Charlie"), is awarded to the " best and fairest" player in the Australian Football League (AFL) during the home-and-away season, as determined by votes cast by ...

, but was ineligible to win the medal due to an earlier, questionable, suspension that season. North Melbourne went on to win the 1996 AFL Premiership, with McKernan typically magnificent in the Grand Final against

Sydney Sydney ( ) is the capital city of the state of New South Wales, and the most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Located on Australia's east coast, the metropolis surrounds Sydney Harbour and extends about towards the Blue Mountain ...

, recording a career high 29 disposals in the Grand Final. To add to his list of honours, McKernan was named as first ruck in the All-Australian team and some experts had him ahead of teammate Carey as the best player in the league.

1997 to 1999

In Round 1 of

1997 File:1997 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The movie set of ''Titanic'', the highest-grossing movie in history at the time; ''Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone'', is published; Comet Hale-Bopp passes by Earth and becomes one of t ...

, Wayne Carey was seriously injured and missed the following 11 weeks. With Carey absent, McKernan in just his fourth full season, became the most important player at the club. Unfortunately, though still consistent and effective, he could not repeat his inspirational efforts of the previous year. In North Melbourne's Preliminary Final defeat against St Kilda, McKernan dislocated his shoulder in the opening minutes and watched from the sidelines as his team went down by 31 points. The following year was disappointing for both McKernan and the Kangaroos, however, 1999 became another premiership year for North Melbourne, as McKernan returned to some good form, leading the team in marks and kicking 34 goals from his 24 games. He finished the season with three goals in North Melbourne's 39-point Grand Final win over Carlton.

2000 and 2001

Later in his career McKernan became more of a forward and backup ruckman as Matthew Burton accepted most of the ruck duties for the Kangaroos. However, McKernan still finished second in the Kangaroos' goal kicking in both

2000 File:2000 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: Protests against Bush v. Gore after the 2000 United States presidential election; Heads of state meet for the Millennium Summit; The International Space Station in its infant form as seen from ...

and

2001 The September 11 attacks against the United States by Al-Qaeda, which Casualties of the September 11 attacks, killed 2,977 people and instigated the global war on terror, were a defining event of 2001. The United States led a Participants in ...

, with 40 and 38 goals respectively. He kicked a career high eight goals against

Geelong Geelong ( ) (Wathawurrung: ''Djilang''/''Djalang'') is a port city in the southeastern Australian state of Victoria, located at the eastern end of Corio Bay (the smaller western portion of Port Phillip Bay) and the left bank of Barwon River, ...

in Round 19 of 2000 – a game in which he also claimed eight marks, with 23 disposals and 11 hit-outs.

Carlton

2002 File:2002 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The 2002 Winter Olympics are held in Salt Lake City; Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother and her daughter Princess Margaret, Countess of Snowdon die; East Timor gains East Timor independence, indepe ...

, McKernan was traded to Carlton where he played the next two seasons. His first season at Carlton was amongst his best since 1996. He led the Blues in hit outs and goals and claimed his first and only club best and fairest award.

Back to North Melbourne

After a disappointing 2003 at Carlton, McKernan returned to the

Kangaroos Kangaroos are four marsupials from the family Macropodidae (macropods, meaning "large foot"). In common use the term is used to describe the largest species from this family, the red kangaroo, as well as the antilopine kangaroo, eastern gre ...

for one last season in 2004, after which he retired due to injury and poor form.

Playing statistics

: , - style="background-color: #EAEAEA" ! scope="row" style="text-align:center" , 1993 , , 31 , , 1 , , 0 , , 0 , , 5 , , 1 , , 6 , , 1 , , 2 , , 3 , , 0.0 , , 0.0 , , 5.0 , , 1.0 , , 6.0 , , 1.0 , , 2.0 , , 3.0 , - ! scope="row" style="text-align:center" ,

, , 31 , , 21 , , 22 , , 19 , , 181 , , 113 , , 294 , , 110 , , 12 , , 183 , , 1.0 , , 0.9 , , 8.6 , , 5.4 , , 14.0 , , 5.2 , , 0.6 , , 8.7 , - style="background-color: #EAEAEA" ! scope="row" style="text-align:center" ,

, , 31 , , 25 , , 19 , , 14 , , 202 , , 130 , , 332 , , 116 , , 6 , , 198 , , 0.8 , , 0.6 , , 8.1 , , 5.2 , , 13.3 , , 4.6 , , 0.2 , , 7.9 , - ! scope="row" style="text-align:center" ,

, , 31 , , 24 , , 33 , , 30 , , 312 , , 111 , , 423 , , 154 , , 17 , , 284 , , 1.4 , , 1.3 , , 13.0 , , 4.6 , , 17.6 , , 6.4 , , 0.7 , , 11.8 , - style="background-color: #EAEAEA" ! scope="row" style="text-align:center" ,

, , 31 , , 22 , , 22 , , 14 , , 237 , , 79 , , 316 , , 134 , , 13 , , 143 , , 1.0 , , 0.6 , , 10.8 , , 3.6 , , 14.4 , , 6.1 , , 0.6 , , 6.5 , - ! scope="row" style="text-align:center" , 1998 , , 31 , , 21 , , 25 , , 15 , , 185 , , 72 , , 257 , , 91 , , 18 , , 240 , , 1.2 , , 0.7 , , 8.8 , , 3.4 , , 12.2 , , 4.3 , , 0.9 , , 11.4 , - style="background-color: #EAEAEA" ! scope="row" style="text-align:center" , 1999 , , 31 , , 24 , , 34 , , 22 , , 253 , , 98 , , 351 , , 151 , , 14 , , 324 , , 1.4 , , 0.9 , , 10.5 , , 4.1 , , 14.6 , , 6.3 , , 0.6 , , 13.5 , - ! scope="row" style="text-align:center" ,

, , 31 , , 23 , , 40 , , 22 , , 231 , , 80 , , 311 , , 135 , , 15 , , 150 , , 1.7 , , 1.0 , , 10.0 , , 3.5 , , 13.5 , , 5.9 , , 0.7 , , 6.5 , - style="background-color: #EAEAEA" ! scope="row" style="text-align:center" ,

, , 31 , , 21 , , 38 , , 15 , , 160 , , 52 , , 212 , , 99 , , 11 , , 98 , , 1.8 , , 0.7 , , 7.6 , , 2.5 , , 10.1 , , 4.7 , , 0.5 , , 4.7 , - ! scope="row" style="text-align:center" ,

, , 2 , , 22 , , 40 , , 26 , , 170 , , 69 , , 239 , , 94 , , 27 , , 214 , , 1.8 , , 1.2 , , 7.7 , , 3.1 , , 10.9 , , 4.3 , , 1.2 , , 9.7 , - style="background-color: #EAEAEA" ! scope="row" style="text-align:center" ,

2003 File:2003 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: The crew of STS-107 perished when the Space Shuttle Columbia disintegrated during reentry into Earth's atmosphere; SARS became an epidemic in China, and was a precursor to SARS-CoV-2; A des ...

, , 2 , , 19 , , 20 , , 16 , , 110 , , 44 , , 154 , , 61 , , 12 , , 163 , , 1.1 , , 0.8 , , 5.8 , , 2.3 , , 8.1 , , 3.2 , , 0.6 , , 8.6 , - ! scope="row" style="text-align:center" ,

2004 2004 was designated as an International Year of Rice by the United Nations, and the International Year to Commemorate the Struggle Against Slavery and its Abolition (by UNESCO). Events January * January 3 – Flash Airlines Flight 6 ...

, , 5 , , 14 , , 17 , , 9 , , 89 , , 28 , , 117 , , 55 , , 23 , , 146 , , 1.2 , , 0.6 , , 6.4 , , 2.0 , , 8.4 , , 3.9 , , 1.6 , , 10.4 , - ! scope="row" style="text-align:center" ,

2005 File:2005 Events Collage V2.png, From top left, clockwise: Hurricane Katrina in the Gulf of Mexico; the Funeral of Pope John Paul II is held in Vatican City; "Me at the zoo", the first video ever to be uploaded to YouTube; Eris was discovered in ...

, , 5 , , 0 , , 0 , , 0 , , 0 , , 0 , , 0 , , 0 , , 0 , , 0 , , 0.0 , , 0.0 , , 0.0 , , 0.0 , , 0.0 , , 0.0 , , 0.0 , , 0.0 , - class="sortbottom" ! colspan=3, Career ! 237 ! 310 ! 202 ! 2135 ! 877 ! 3012 ! 1201 ! 170 ! 2146 ! 1.3 ! 0.9 ! 9.0 ! 3.7 ! 12.7 ! 5.1 ! 0.7 ! 9.1

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:McKernan, Corey Australian rules footballers from Victoria (Australia) North Melbourne Football Club players North Melbourne Football Club Premiership players Carlton Football Club players Leigh Matthews Trophy winners 1973 births Living people All-Australians (AFL) John Nicholls Medal winners Victorian State of Origin players Two-time VFL/AFL Premiership players