The problem with that was that once Cripps could not get first hands on the ball and shovel it out to the spritely pubescent teammates dancing on the outside,then those teammates just looked like pimply kids as they were shrugged away by men.
Cripps went to compete at the centre bounce 28 times for Carlton on Sunday – rightly,the most by any Blues player.
But consider the roll call of partners he had in the centre with him. Zac Fisher went to 17 centre bounces. Paddy Dow went to 15 of them,Sam Walsh went in nine times and Will Setterfield was in there eight times.
Marc Murphy,meanwhile,was off with a shirt full of broken ribs – all legally cracked,as it turns out.