Almanac Footy: Carlton 2026 – From Voss To Where?

By Carlton standards, the departure of Michael Voss as senior coach has been positively civilised. This is doubtless due to in large part to the character of the man concerned. Whatever his limitations as coach, no one who has watched Carlton these last five seasons should question the man’s character. But the clean nature of the break also reflects the fact that of the many questions which Carlton now faces, the fate of Voss had become by far the easiest to answer.

 

The clearest imperative for Michael Voss as a disappointing 2025 season moved on to 2026 was to find a new way. Our style of play has brought diminishing returns since ¼ time in Round 18, 2024. With decisions to make wholesale changes to his supporting coaches, and substantial changes to the playing list, the club was signaling that it recognised things needed to change. But it was prepared to give the senior coach one last chance.

 

That’s why I find the commentary line that Voss was set up to fail this season unpersuasive. It’s not easy to change your style of play on the run. But if some genuine progress, or even a genuine attempt to mix things up had been visible, I suspect Voss’s future may have been more of an open question than most presumed.

 

Despite promising signs in the pre-season practice matches, once the real season started it quickly became apparent that we were watching the same-old same-old. Carlton has been losing in 2026 for fundamentally the same reasons as it lost games in 2022, and throughout the Voss tenure. Over reliance on clearance and contested ball, lack of transition from defense, inability to score on turnover, lack of run and spread: all of these problems have appeared consistently to undermine the Voss project.

 

Yet for one glorious period it all came together to produce Carlton’s best run this century. Our golden run began after ¼ time in Round 14 against Gold Coast in 2023 and continued until that aforementioned Round 18 game against GWS in 2024. For just over one season out of four and a half the right balance was struck, but it couldn’t be sustained. The game moved on and we haven’t moved with it.

 

The interview Voss gave to AFL Media on Tuesday was characteristically open. Revealingly, he admitted he had no plan B after football. That’s the man. The singlemindedness that made him such a great player and captain at Brisbane has ultimately proved his undoing as a coach. But it would be wrong to characterise the Voss period as a total failure. He is justified in thinking he leaves Carlton better off than when he took up the reins. And when it was good it was a hell of a ride.

 

Be that as it may, Carlton still isn’t where it desperately wants to be.

 

How does Carlton win its next premiership? Ask me an easy one.

 

It is now a decade since we finally started to face the reality of our modern predicament. The rebuild we resolved to pursue in 2015 still requires substantial renovation. The number of departures from the club in the last 12 months are clear admission of that. Considering what has been achieved at other clubs in the last decade, we are clearly slow learners.

 

If the coach’s fate had become clear, matters concerning our playing group are considerably less so. Much punditry opinion is prescribing a scorched-earth approach to our list. Yet this is a playing list that is perfectly capable of leading for half a game week after week. I’d like to see them playing with a different system before too many final judgements are made. If you sell all the furniture you end up on the floor.

 

My big concern about our playing group is that our senior team leaders have now seen off their third coach. That’s not all about the coaches. The very fact that our golden run can be ascribed to such specific beginning and end points is telling. It is of a part with the continuing collapses within individual games. I think the effort levels of too many of our players seem too dependent on their emotional state. And too much of their effort is expended to poor effect.

 

The mythology of our turnaround in 2023 begins with the oft-cited player meeting at Ed Curnow’s property. Supposedly, a clearing of the air produced a changed perspective. That changed perspective soon produced improving fortunes, which created an emotional wave that players and supporters rode all the way to a Preliminary Final in 2023, and beyond into the next season.

 

That story is no doubt a simplification of reality. But it admits that problems existed before the meeting. And that once that emotional wave receded those problems hadn’t been sufficiently resolved.

 

All of that speaks to a club environment that still has systemic problems. That isn’t developing in players all the traits they require to be successful. Emotion has its place, particularly if you’re relying on contested footy, but it’s no substitute for a sound method when the pressure’s on. That is presumably a conclusion that Graham Wright and Chris Davies have already reached.

 

Where to now? I doubt the way to a successful future lies in a return to 1990’s thinking. I’m currently hearing lots of tired clichés about the club needing to get back to its old ruthless off-field ways. As if those old ways hadn’t significantly created our modern problems. How about trying to get smarter? To learn from our many mistakes?

 

On that note, who should Carlton appoint next as coach? Don’t ask me, I’m just another mug on the outside looking in, trying to read the tea leaves as to what’s really lacking. It’s not like we haven’t already tried every genre of coach this century – from novice to experienced. That suggests I’m not the only one short of answers.

 

The one observation I’ll offer, with the benefit of hindsight, is that each of our coaching appointments in this century have come as a reaction to what has preceded, not with a clear view of what was required in the future. It falls to Graham Wright to break that cycle.

 

Carlton’s inglorious stumble through the 21^st Century disqualifies us from any further benefit of the doubt. Seeing will be the only believing from this point on.

 

 

More from John Butler can be read Here.

 

 

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