Corey McKernan (born 19 December 1973) is a former Australian rules footballer 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 a ...

and Carlton Blues in the Australian Football League (AFL). A dual Premiership player a one time All Australian 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 me ...

'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 ...

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 fif ...

. 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 sank in the Baltic Sea; Nelson Ma ...

, McKernan had an impressive start to his AFL Career, after being elevated by coach Denis Pagan 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 The AFL Rising Star is an Australian rules football award presented annually to the player adjudged the best young player in the Australian Football League (AFL) for the year. It was first presented in the 1993 season, and was won by Nathan Buc ...

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 acquitted of the murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman from the year prior in "The Trial of the Century" in the United States; The Great Hanshin earthquake strike ...

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

1996 File:1996 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: A bomb explodes at Centennial Olympic Park in Atlanta, set off by a radical anti-abortionist; The center fuel tank explodes on TWA Flight 800, causing the plane to crash and killing everyone on b ...

. 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 Melbourn ...

, at season's end the AFL Players Association 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, 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 ...

, 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 File:1999 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The funeral procession of King Hussein of Jordan in Amman; the 1999 İzmit earthquake kills over 17,000 people in Turkey; the Columbine High School massacre, one of the first major school s ...

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 killed 2,977 people and instigated the global war on terror, were a defining event of 2001. The United States led a multi-national coalition in an invasion of Afghanistan ...

, 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 south eastern 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 ...

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 independence from Indonesia and ...

, 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 ...

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 File:1993 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The Oslo I Accord is signed in an attempt to resolve the Israeli–Palestinian conflict; The Russian White House is shelled during the 1993 Russian constitutional crisis; Czechoslovakia is peace ...

, , 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 1998 was designated as the ''International Year of the Ocean''. Events January * January 6 – The ''Lunar Prospector'' spacecraft is launched into orbit around the Moon, and later finds evidence for frozen water, in soil in permanently s ...

, , 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" ,

, , 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 Space Shuttle Columbia disaster, disintegrated during reentry into Atmosphere of Earth, Earth's atmosphere; SARS became an 2002– ...

, , 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 60 ...

, , 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 (dwarf planet), Er ...

, , 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