Here’s Carlton chief executive, Brian Cook, last night: “Michael Voss will be with us until at least the end of next year.” Here’s the president, Luke Sayers: “The boys love Vossy … Vossy is a phenomenal human.” Here’s sportswriter Peter Ryan: “The Age spoke to six people inside and outside the club who are familiar with the environment surrounding the Blues’ current predicament, and none thought that moving on the coach was an option even worth considering.” Here’s pundit David King: “It’s not anywhere near the crisis some are making it out to be – most issues simply require acknowledgment, alteration and then time to correct. Stability wins in this circumstance every time.”
Here’s the reality. Last night, Voss’s Carlton had eleven players who were top 20 selections in their draft. That included two No 1 picks, a No 3, a pair of Coleman medallists and a Brownlow medallist. They kicked six goals. They lost their eighth game in nine weeks. Their key forwards can’t kick straight. Their midfielders can’t hit the broad side of a barn. They let Essendon, hardly an offensive juggernaut, slam on six goals in 15 minutes. They laid 37 tackles – their lowest tally in eight years. They can’t move the ball. They can’t score. They’re no good.
For Blues fans, watching their team is excruciating. It’s not as though they’re kicking 15 goals and getting pipped at the post. It’s not as though they’re North Melbourne, with a glut of young players who are going to be stars. It’s not as though they’re Hawthorn, with a clear plan and purpose. Last week, Voss said they were playing too tight. But the whole place is on edge. There’s this all-pervasive anxiety – from the board members lashing out in the rooms, to the full forward ballooning set shots from 10 metres out and the crazed lunatics jamming talkback lines.
The fans have heard it all before. They’ve been given a lot of assurances. Their team has had all the picks, and all the favours. They’ve ridden the cycle of hope, hype and letdown. They keep being told to be patient. It will come. Stay the course. Back the coach in. But there’s a very real chance that this list – built brick by brick and high draft pick by high draft pick since Brendan Bolton’s first crop – may be a bust. There’s a very real chance that Patrick Cripps, who has carried more load than perhaps any other footballer of his generation, who is clearly banged up, and who is now being unfairly blamed for their recent form, may end up never playing in a final. If that happens, it will be a travesty.
In terms of Voss, comparisons have been made to Geelong in 2006, and the club’s decision to stick with Mark Thompson. But that Cats side had played in a preliminary final in 2004. The following year, they lost a first semi-final to the eventual premiers, and only by a freak event. Others are comparing it to Richmond’s decision to back in Damien Hardwick in 2016. But Hardwick had taken his team to three finals series in a row. The coach aside, there’s a lot of Richmond from 10 years ago about Carlton now – the forever thwarted hopes, the frustration, the way that you can see exactly what’s being built, but feel like it could collapse at any point.
“It’s not Vossy’s fault!” was a common sentiment on social media last night. And clearly it’s not all on him. There are systemic issues around list and salary cap management. He was desperately unlucky with injuries last year. But he’s now coached 35 games at Carlton – a season and a half. Of those, what have been his standout wins? Was it his first win, over a Richmond side that had finished 12th six months earlier? Maybe it was the win over the in-form Fremantle a tick under a year ago? Maybe it was the win over Geelong earlier this year? The Blues just fell over the line that night and the Cats played as poorly as they have in years. Was that the apex of the Voss era?
The past is always present at Carlton. Last night, their 16 premiership cups sat alongside Essendon’s 16 to form a perfect circle jerk in the middle of the MCG. It was a reminder of a different Carlton, an imperial Carlton, a Carlton that would have shown Voss the door weeks ago. But the new Carlton is “values-led”. “We are humble, yet ambitious and inwardly confident,” its latest five-year plan reads.
Voss is contracted for three years. In many ways, being patient, being “inwardly confident” and sticking the course would be the easy option. The brutal decision, the old school Carlton decision, and maybe the right decision, would be to admit this isn’t working, and that he’s not the man for the job. That’s hard. He was a magnificent footballer. He’s universally admired. He’s given it everything. But it hasn’t worked. Every week, we see it. Every week, it seems to get worse. Nothing works, nothing changes.
“Is this the real life, is this just fantasy?” the club tweeted after his first win last year. Maybe it was a fantasy all along. Maybe the 8-2 sugar hit and Cripps’ Brownlow year papered over the reality – that the team is patently ordinary, that the coach has no tricks and no discernible gameplan and that the club, for the umpteenth time this century, is going to have to start again.
