The Tackle: Carlton captain Patrick Cripps opens up on his time at family farm during shutdown

A level of expectation and anticipation awaits an emerging Carlton side as the season restarts. While they have attracted some hype from the football world, their skipper tells Mark Robinson that actions speak louder than words.

Patrick Cripps spend some time during isolation training with his third cousin, Eagle Jamie Cripps. Picture: Supplied.

Isolation for Patrick Cripps wasn’t a chore, it was a long-awaited family adventure.

On the family farm at Northampton, 500kms north of Perth, that sprawls back from some of Australia’s most gorgeous coastline, three brothers relived their childhoods.

The menu included surfing, fishing, swimming, hunting and quad biking, with some footy training to kick off the day at 6am.

“It was unreal,’’ Cripps says.

“This is my seventh year in Melbourne. It goes quick. Obviously my family is really tight, we get on well, and we always catch up but hardly all together.

“I love playing footy and all that, but it was a period where you had a lot of time to yourself and your family. It was good quality time to put your energy into those two things.’’

For the first time in adulthood, the three bothers — Daniel, 28, Patrick 25, and Josh 17 — hung out in a world far removed from the coronavirus.

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Patrick Cripps with his father Brad and two brothers, Daniel and Josh. Picture: Supplied

Patrick Cripps and his family at dinner.

Cripps and his partner Monique isolated on the farm for two weeks with the folks, Brad and Cath, and were then joined by the brothers and Daniel’s partner.

‘‘You’ve always got to see the positives about everything,’’ Cripps says. ‘‘I’m a very positive person, I always want to see the best in people and situations and make the most out of them and that’s been relevant lately.

‘‘For me, the virus gave me a chance to slow down.

‘‘For my generation, people my age, it’s ‘what’s next, what’s next’ and you’re just flat out.

‘‘This period gave me time to reflect and we had the whole family there for a month.

‘‘In a weird way, it felt like you were away from everything going on in the world. It was really normal life up there. Obviously people were scared at the start, but they just kept working and putting in their crops.

‘‘I just did all things I did when I grew up, fishing, surfing, a bit of hunting. You get a few wild pigs, so you just chase after them which good fun. I love doing that, it makes feel I’m back in the country.’’

Unlike most football people who devoured games from the 1980s and 1990s in lockdown, Cripps was off the grid.

The view that greeted Patrick Cripps at the beach. Picture: Supplied

He hardly watched TV, the mobile phone service was patchy and the internet connection for zoom meetings with teammates and coaches was more stop than start.

Anyway, when he was fishing for pink snapper, jewfish, coral trout and bluebones, he was mostly 10-20km off shore.

‘‘It’s magic up there,’’ he said.

The shutdown taught him a couple of lessons.

One, was that it was important to have more than footy in your life.

‘‘I love footy and love to get the best out of myself and others around me, but I’ve always tried to keep one eye on the future,’’ he said.

He’s almost completed a agriculture business degree — he started it seven years ago — and is keen on psychology.

‘‘Just how to get people better and understand them,’’ he said. ‘‘I’m thinking of doing a post-grad in that.’’

Two, that life throws curve balls, like it has at plenty of good footy people at the club.

‘‘You just never know what’s going to happen,’’ he said.

‘‘You have to set yourself and be organised and not just assume everything is going to go to plan.’’

Don’t fret Blues fans, the skipper is not hankering for a return to Western Australia.

He is out of contract at the end of 2021, but he ain’t going anywhere.

‘‘You can put that in,’’ he said.

‘‘I’m pretty determined to have success around here, that’s for sure. It’s been a while.’’

Cripps with his partner Monique. Picture: Supplied

FITTER PATTY

Cripps was awake at 6am most days on the farm and training by 6.30am.

Carlton’s high performance chief Andrew Russell set a two-month program which involved high-end workloads, then de-loads, and high intensity again.

Cripps trained with younger brother Josh and third-cousin Jamie Cripps, the West Coast forward whose family also owns a farm at Northampton. And a couple of times all the brothers trained at the local club, the Rams.

Russell told Fox Footy Live on Saturday Cripps had shed weight from the 2019 season.

‘‘He’s so strong, so stable over the ball, he can just prop and stop and he knows exactly where his body is, he knows how to move, where to move,’’ Russell said.

‘‘He has improved his power. We’ve been working on that in the off-season, his ability to produce force quickly to be more explosive.

‘‘He’s not the hardest runner going around, but he’s improved it a lot and it’s now at a reasonable level to complement what he’s good at, which is that big, strong, beast and powerful around the contest.’’

Cripps’ with his brother Josh and West Coast Eagle Jamie Cripps.

Patrick Cripps worked hard over the break. Picture: Getty Images

Cripps played at 95-96kgs in 2019. He stripped for Round 1 this year at about 93kgs.

‘‘When you’re my age you’re still experimenting to see what the optimal playing weight is,’’ he said. ‘‘It’s just finding ways to find the marginal improvements.

‘‘Being a tall midfielder you’re going to have the strength, so it’s about finding power to increase the running capacity at the end of games.’’

The mornings on the farm were perfect to enjoy training, he said.

Because there wasn’t a timetable for football’s return, and certainly no games at the weekends, there was little point motivating yourself into a competitive mindset.

‘‘I sort of used the training more to feel good than to train, I changed the mindset around it,’’ he said.

‘‘I was finished by 9am and had the whole day ahead.’’

It wasn’t all a holiday, Cripps and dad cleaned out a concrete water tank which hadn’t been touched since 1977, he said.

‘‘We were up to our knees in mud and it put it into perspective my football, I can tell you.’’

Patrick Cripps has stripped kilos from his 2019 playing weight. Picture: Getty Images

NEW YEAR, SAME GOALS

Russell said the Blues squad was ‘‘highly motivated’’.

They were enlightening words for a team which has floundered for half of the past decade.

Still, Cripps didn’t disagree.

‘‘He’s been around 20 years and seen a lot scenarios and can judge on previous experiences, I can only judge on what I’ve seen at the club,’’ Cripps said.

‘‘I definitely saw a huge change when they came back and even from this break we’ve just had.’

‘‘The way they turned up, you can tell they’re motivated.’’

There’s a sense of impatience and frustration

‘‘We’ve had so many tough times over the past few years, we are so ready to enjoy what AFL football is about, which is winning, and rocking up each week and getting that buzz.’’

In Round 1 against Richmond, the Blues were down by eight goals at halftime and eventually lost by 24 points. The Tigers may have put the cue in the rack, but at the same time, the Blues didn’t surrender.

Patrick Cripps at training. Picture: Getty Images

The issue, however, is consistency.

And, Cripps said, talk was cheap.

‘‘We can do all the talking we want, but you guys are going to write about how we play,’’ he said.

‘‘You hear things all the time about different clubs and our club in the media, but at the end of the day, good teams just go out and get the job done.

‘‘We’ve got to let our footy do the talking.

‘‘On the farm, the thing which hit home for me ... I’m in my seventh year now and like said, you can do all the talking you want, but after seven years I just want to help this club to start winning and to play finals footy.

‘‘Again, you can say that, but I’m a stage of my career where we want to start winning and I know the group is so motivated to do that.’’

The Blues play Melbourne at Marvel Stadium in Round 2.

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Originally published as The Tackle: Carlton captain Patrick Cripps opens up on his time at family farm during shutdown