WHEN Chad Cornes stabbed his hand into the turf at Football Park last weekend, breaking a digit and forcing him out of the Dream Team for this Saturday's tribute game, it had an unforeseen impact.

It left the famous Cornes family with just one representative (Kane) in Melbourne, and handed the Burgoyne brothers the honour of being the only set of siblings running around at the MCG in the match. Peter Burgoyne snr and his wife Gabrielle have seen their vaunted sons win a premiership with Port Adelaide; outside of that day in 2004, this might be among their proudest.

"It's good for our parents," said Peter jnr. "They'd be pretty proud, I think. We're both excited and thrilled. It's a big honour."

The Burgoynes are different yet similar, as can be seen from their football. Peter creates off half-back nowadays; Shaun, listed at the same height (183 centimetres) but plainly a good five centimetres taller, stands up in the maelstrom of the midfield.

Shaun tends to be more highly rated yet it was Peter, having had surgery to correct chronic hamstring problems, who had a better result in the Power's best and fairest in 2007. He was third behind the Cornes brothers, but the more explosive Shaun won support from the umpires with 16 Brownlow Medal votes.

None of which matters a whit to the siblings. "We're not competitive," said Peter. "We haven't got that kind of relationship. If he achieves something I'm proud of him, and if I achieve something, he's proud of me. It goes both ways."

When Shaun, four years the younger, moved to Adelaide to play for Port in 2001, he moved in with Peter. His family left the parenting to the elder Burgoyne.

Evolution took hold. When Port won the flag in 2004, Peter was a superstar, almost winning the Norm Smith Medal, and Shaun was making his way. Now Shaun is an All-Australian midfielder, one of the most devastating stoppage players in the competition, and Peter has passed 200 games for Port.

There's no more big brother-little brother thing happening. "He's married and got a kid and he's a star player now," said Peter Burgoyne. "He's an outstanding player and made a name for himself."

Shaun Burgoyne likes having his brother around. "He mentored me, showed me the ropes when I started, he was very influential with me. Now he's in the back line and I'm in the midfield, we've got different roles in the team. But we still chat fairly often."

Peter Burgoyne, 30, has experienced the exhilaration of playing representative football. He wore the red, yellow and blue of South Australian in 1999, the last of the state-of-origin games, and also represented Australia in the Irish series. But for Shaun, 25, this is all new. "It's a great feeling," he said. "We walked in the room before, we had lunch and met all the boys, and the guys are fairly nervous. It's something that won't happen again and we're excited as well, because it's something different, something you'll remember the rest of your life."

Coach Mark Williams told his players that opportunities to beat Victoria did not crop up so often any more. For Shaun Burgoyne, who grew up watching South Australia and Victoria tangling in the 1980s, it represented an opportunity to play alongside the likes of Dean Cox; to trawl for ideas.

"Obviously you get some help because you're mixing with the best of the best. We've got meetings later on and the coaching staff want as much input from the players as possible. We'll get a chance to speak up, which is great. You get a chance to see how the other players think and look at things from their perspective."

Port has won three games straight to reignite its season but that is on the backburner, at Williams' behest.

"I'm putting everything into this week," said Shaun Burgoyne. "I'm not thinking about club footy this week. We want to beat the Vics. It's something we're passionate about because we've put our hands up and every player here will be putting their best foot forward this week."

Peter Burgoyne won't hear it that players are ambivalent about representative footy. "Personally I think that's crap. If you get the opportunity to play with the best players in Australia, mate, you take it with both hands. I wish it was every year but unfortunately it's not."