Patrick Cripps is to revert to the No.9 guernsey worn at Carlton with great distinction by fellow West Australian Ken Hunter.
Cripps, the club’s 1st round selection (13th overall) in the 2013 AFL draft, sported the No.16 in his maiden season with the Blues, but has since resolved to take the No.9 most recently vacated by another “Sandgroper”, Kane Lucas.
Though just 19 years of age, sentiment governed Cripps’ decision to switch lockers.
“I always wore 9 in juniors growing up,” Cripps said. “I wore it back in the country for Northampton Junior Football Club, the old Rams. I won a few awards in the junior comp and you were pretty stoked when you won awards in them days.”
Mindful of Hunter’s substantial legacy and the fact that “this is a very prestigious number”, Cripps said he was privileged to have met the former Claremont great at a Hyundai promotion earlier this year.
Hunter himself remembered the occasion.
“I did meet him (Cripps) briefly when I was with Jon Dorotich at the MCG and I was very impressed by him,” Hunter said.
“I’d be proud to see another West Australian running around in the No.9 and I’m sure he’s got bright future.”
One of four men named on interchange in Carlton’s Team of the 20th Century, Hunter joined Carlton on the eve of the 1981 season having finished runner-up in Claremont’s Best & Fairest award to Graham Moss three years in succession.
Carlton great Ken Hunter in full flight. (Photo: Carlton Football Club)
A four-time All-Australian considered amongst the game’s most courageous, Hunter, with his breathtaking aerial feats, made an immediate impression.
A best and fairest winner in his maiden season of 1981 (which was also a Premiership year), Hunter was also part of the David Parkin-coached outfit which went back-to-back by landing the ’82 Premiership and he also contributed to the ’87 Grand Final triumph.
Asked if he tended to follow the No.9 guernsey wearer more closely than others, Hunter immediately replied: “You do. One hundred per cent”.
“You can ask any former player if they followed the wearer of their old number more closely and they’d tell you the same,” he said.
