Almanac Footy: Carlton 2025 – How Blue Can You Get?
Here we go again. The broadcasters cut to kids crying in the crowd. Supporters howl for the coach’s head. Pundits’ advice flows faster than water over Niagara Falls. The scent of microwaved membership cards in the morning smells like…. frustration. It’s Round 15, 2025, and this must be Carlton.
When last I last wrote a footy piece for this site, it was about the demise of Michael Voss’s coaching predecessor, David Teague. I described things thus: “The side could play attractive stretches of football, even against the best sides, but it lacked robustness and consistency. When the tide turned against us no one knew what to do, players or coaches. Week after week we would lose in similar ways. Teague often identified the causes in the wash up to a loss, yet those causes remained persistent.” Plus ca change, as they say.
The AFL’s stats guru @sirswampthing produced a graph that has been living inside my head for a while now. It showed that, excluding the two expansion clubs who started in 2011 and 2012 respectively, Carlton had won 20 less games than the next least successful AFL team since the year 2000. 20 games. That’s more than a whole season of wins behind the next worst club* this century.
When we consider our present predicament, that’s the reality I think all Carlton supporters should keep in mind. Any current talk of our “16 flags” just feels like nostalgia porn. That was another club. The club we have now was a mess by 2015. Most of the damage had been self-inflicted. Everything since then has been a slow process of repair. Very slow.
Nobody can accuse Michael Voss’s coaching tenure of being dull. We’ve all watched the team get on extended rolls where we have looked like a serious contender, only to be followed by slumps that felt like they’d never end. In the week before Round 14, 2023, the conversation about Voss was exactly as it is now. Then we got on a roll that took us all the way to a Prelim. As recently as Round 17, 2024, we sat six points clear in second spot on the ladder. We kicked 8 goals in the first quarter against GWS the very next week. Since quarter-time in that game, it’s been pretty much all downhill.
I reckon I’ve spent the last 23 years listening to Carlton supporters declaring this or that coach “can’t coach” whenever things have turned sour. I’m hearing the same thing now, even from those I regard as otherwise rational. Consider this. In 2022 the players took the vapours in the last two games, and a finals berth was forfeited at the last possible moment. But for that, the bloke who many now say can’t coach would have had us in the finals in each of his first three years. So I reckon he can coach. The question is has he reached his limits with this group? Does he have anything more to offer?
But wasn’t the Carlton playing list meant to be cherry-ripe for a flag run? Certainly the top end talent seduces. Cripps, Weitering, Walsh, Curnow, McKay and De Koning are a pretty fair nucleus to form a team around. IF they’re fit. But they need some help. The evidence of this year has raised serious questions about our depth.
The main accusation against Voss is that our game style is holding us back. It’s all clearance and contest. When we struggle, the same problems recur. We’re inefficient inside 50. We bomb the ball, particularly under pressure. When the opposition puts us under the pump, our ball movement seizes up.
But game style is a chicken-and-egg proposition. No coach who implements a game plan beyond his side’s capabilities is getting very far. We have two outstanding key forwards (who have barely played together this year) and a top full-back. Our best mids are generally inside contested-ball winners who aren’t particularly quick. Our best outside mid hasn’t had a clear pre-season since 2023 (and is currently injured, again). The depth and quality of our other outside runners is questionable. We lack outstanding small forwards. No wonder we lean on clearance and contest.
The team has some obvious weaknesses. We are one of the worst kicking sides in the comp. If you can’t reliably hit targets by foot, any style is likely to struggle. And we badly lack game-smarts. We don’t have one player on our list who demonstrates the game-awareness of a Pendlebury or a Sidebottom. This season you can also ask big questions about the players’ commitment and connectedness. Some of them check-out too often. Does this sound like a premiership-winning combination?
The truth is that successful coaches are largely made by successful clubs. And as our 21st Century record attests, we haven’t been a successful club for a long time. So we’ve recruited outside help. Brian Cook and Graham Wright both come with universal seals of approval. Cook doubtless helped calm the farm in 2023, and a preliminary final berth was the reward.
Cook arrived when the Voss appointment was basically a done deal. His early public assessment of Voss has always intrigued me. He didn’t claim Voss the most brilliant tactician, but he thought to offer a lot in terms of developing a leadership culture. Think what you like of that, but four years later, I couldn’t tell you who our tactical guru was supposed to be. Which makes me think the footy department has at least as many questions to answer as our coach.
So now we find ourselves making a dog’s breakfast of what looked a favourable fixture. Finals are a fast receding hope. In truth, we have been struggling all season, with the perverse exception of the Geelong game. It apparently falls to Graham Wright to sort this mess out, because the evidence suggests we can’t trust ourselves to get it right.
No pressure, Wrighty.
*That club happens to be North Melbourne.
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About John Butler
John Butler has fled the World's Most Liveable Car Park and now breathes the rarefied air of the Ballarat Plateau. For his sins, he has passed his 40th year as a Carlton member.
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Good piece, John, thanks. A very fair and accurate assessment of Carlton’s abysmal position. I feel your pain – I’ve been a Blues supporter since the early Sixties, too! The only sentence I’d take odds with is ‘Finals are a fast-receding hope’. They’ve receded so far I can’t even see them anymore!
Siri,
Why did it take a loss to North Melbourne to get JB to put pen to paper?
In all seriousness, JB, I was so confident of winning that I tipped North. A rarity for me. This was based on the available personnel more so than anything else: McKay, Walsh, Newman etc all unavailable. And North’s form hadn’t been terrible. I’m not sure what the issues are at Carlton, but I agree it runs deeper than Voss.
Thanks for commenting, Merv. I just got new glasses, so I’m seeing many things that may not actually exist just now. :)
Smokie, anyone who has been watching the recent form of both sides knew this game had danger written all over it. Which makes the effort we put in all the less excusable. But well played to your lads. The margin flattered us greatly. The only thing you did wrong was play for stumps in the last term. You could have belted us.
Good to see your incisive commentary back JB. I’d write something similar about the Eagles – but I’d have to care enough to spare the time. The hyper commercialisation of footy has me mostly in the “who cares” camp. I tend to watch the skilful, fast teams when they clash. Pies, Lions, Hawks, Dogs, Cats, Giants mostly.
75% of AFL games are unwatchable to my eyes.
Recruiting seems to be a large part of Blues problems. I remember the hype when you got Cerra from the Dockers. Mutton dressed as lamb. Handy but no game changer.
Like you, I’ve seen games where I thought Charlie Curnow was going to be the next Kouta. Dunno if it’s his body or his brain, but it feels like I’ve been keeping the light on for him longer than Harold Holt. Jesse Hogan (who knew what a space cadet could do given the right environment?) has gone way past Charlie as the best mobile big forward. Travesty.
G’day PB. Tough going for your Eagles at present. I’m not sure if you’ve written the definitive analysis of how your boys have fallen so far so quickly (it was only 2018!). If you have, I’ve missed it.
Recruiting has definitely played a part. SOS nailed spine players in his list rebuild, but apart from Walsh, had a terrible record of using first round picks on mids who didn’t cut it. And our free agent spends have been very mixed. Only Saad has really ended up playing the role originally intended.
Fair call re Charlie. He had a stuffed pre-season this year, but you can still try. If he can’t mark the ball at present he gives up. Hogan has definitely surpassed him these last two seasons. Easily.
Put the kettle on and we can wallow in mediocrity together JB. Well summed up. Ive just finished watching a 4 part doco on 7+ called Bringing Down the Thunder, the story of the 2005 Swans . I reckon its the best AFL doco Ive ever seen and great to reflect on pure one on one footy again. I think your Blues could do with watching it just for the passion and team first commitment on show. Ive got genuine question marks over a number of your blokes in that facet. Theyre disconnected and soft im afraid and it doesnt all come down to Vossy. He’d be tearing his hair out at the efforts right now.
Willo, kettles’ ready when you are.
If the players have fallen out of love with Voss, then that would be the third coach for some of them. Which means the coaches aren’t the real problem.
I’m particularly watching Charly tonight. I doubt he’s completely fit, but he’s crossing the white line and he’s in our leadership group. His effort last week was completely unacceptable. If tonight isn’t way way better, I’d be advocating he heads straight to the VFL.
Cheers
Have held off on writing something here for a day or so, partly to calm down and partly to consider family bias, however, here goes. Frankly, they deserve all they get. My nephew’s son (grandnephew?), Harry Lemmey, was drafted in 2022 and has now spent 3 years on the list. He plays as a key forward and kicked 7 goals a couple of weeks ago in the VFL. With all the injuries and general incompetence up forward, I would have thought he would have got a game by now. No, the same old keep turning up at selection. Pre-season instructions have changed each year and it now seems clear his card has been marked. Why recruit a bloke like that and never give him a game?
As others more familiar with Carlton have said above, it is a long and winding road of incompetence.
Bucko, Harry Lemmy is precisely who I’d replace Charlie with if he doesn’t lift his game.
Personally, I’d have played Lemmy against North instead of Pitto. But they were probably worried Xerri would beat TDK up again. And I’d have picked him for tonight as well. He’s greatly improved over the last 6 weeks or so. They need to start rewarding that sort of thing. The selection has very much stuck to the same old same olds where possible.
Lemmey.
I reckon that Xerri bloke is going to beat up quite a few before he’s finished…
My apologies to Harry.
Bucko, at least the players didn’t leave us hanging in suspense last night.
More to come.
Thanks John.
I have not watched the whole of last night – child minding while my Port supporter daughter and husband went along – but much of the first half was very poor from Carlton. Kicking made Melbourne’s look good. Thought our rucks went close to break even or a small win against the highly rated De Koning and, frankly, either Curnow is playing injured or he is close to the most over-paid and over-rated player in the comp, I reckon.