A rumour spread quickly on Wednesday morning that Michael Voss had been sacked.
The rumour took hold faster than minds could turn to what date it was. Why? Because, you April fools, it feels like it could easily have been true, even after round three.
Carlton are the same as any club, in that if you wait long enough a rumour like that will turn out to be true. All coaches eventually get the sack. But at Carlton, the time frame might be shorter on a coach out of contract at season’s end.
Michael Voss was the best captain in the AFL when he played. He was utterly uncompromising against anyone who stood in his way, and a fiercely loyal leader of his teammates.
As a coach, he needs to rediscover his playing ruthlessness.
If he persists with the same mix of players, he will go down with them. Voss either changes – or he will be the change.
Carlton is not a place where ruthlessness has ever given way to loyalty. Brett Ratten knows that.
If the club’s trend of second-half self-destruction, which began last year, was not clear before, it is abundantly clear now. Carlton’s fadeouts – actually, that is far too generous a term. Call them surrenders – are not a sample size of three games, they have been a thread for years. Last year they stopped after half-time against Richmond in round one and were overrun by a team that was not assumed capable of winning one game for the year, let alone its first. Then Hawthorn, Adelaide, North Melbourne, Brisbane and Fremantle all had their way with Carlton in second halves.
The game has gone in one direction and the Blues have gone another. The game now is about outside run, speed and connection. Carlton have a team that would have been hard to beat 5-10 years ago, but not now.
When a trend is obvious, opting to change requires no choice at all.
Sam Walsh is a lock in the midfield. He has attended 87 per cent of Carlton centre bounces this year. He has run, class and creativity and is not the problem. Without Tom De Koning, Marc Pittonet is going to 79 per cent of centre bounces.
Patrick Cripps and George Hewett have been to almost all centre bounces this year, while Jagga Smith in just his first three games has gone to one in two. Smith, other than youthful fatigue, is not the problem.
Adam Cerra is yet to play this year and is available again this week. He will not improve outside run. He is defensively stronger than the others, but he is slow.
The game does not tolerate a midfield with a mix of Cripps, Hewett and Cerra. Where does Cripps fit in this? He’s the captain, but cannot or does not have the full game influence he used to have. He trained forward over summer and played in front of the ball in practice matches but come the start of the season we have not seen it. Is Voss prepared to push the hybrid mid-forward role now? Is Hewett the casualty?
The mix, whether it be solely the on-ball mix, or the blend and type of transition runners, has to change.
Adam Saad and Nic Newman were available but played in the twos last week so that is encouraging – that there is a growing appetite to choose performance over reputation. It now needs to go further.
Unfortunately, defender Harry Dean is unavailable this week, for he and Smith are the brightest lights of a dim start to the season.
The mix of playing personnel is only one reason for the games of second-half destruction, but there are myriad others, some physical, some mental.
Is it fatigue? Maybe, but when you rally to get back to 20 points up with minutes to play, this argument is doubtful.
Is it the fact the game opens up in the second half when big-bodied players can’t run as they did early on and their influence fades? And the players who have the run and carry on the outside are either too few, in the case of Walsh, or too inexperienced, in the case of Smith?
What renders players incapable of sticking tackles in one half of the game that they stuck in the first half? What makes those players unable to hit the targets they hit early on? What makes them snatch at marks and drop them, or take their eyes off the ball and spill them in the second half and not the first?
Much of this has to be mental and the panic that crackles like static through the group when they see the change come at them. It chokes the skills, so handballs are fluffed, marks are spilled and kicks are sprayed by muscles that tighten.
It makes players who early on worried to get across to help a teammate abandon that and start sticking close to their man and safeguarding themselves.
It is now such a thing that the opposition uses it. Melbourne did. At half-time they brought it up and sure, they were clutching for anything at the time after being so pathetic in the first half, but it was still one of the first things they went to: Carlton will panic. Carlton will stop.
Steven King geed his players at half-time and warned them that if they brought the heat the mental demons would join the red and blue ones in getting the job done. He was right.
Voss now needs to be more coach, less captain, and be more ruthless. Going back to the same player mix and same method isn’t an option.
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Michael Gleeson is an award-winning senior sports writer specialising in AFL and athletics.Connect via X or email.
