AFL Senior Coach Michael Voss and the Blues are looking for a response - and there’s no better occasion to do that than against the old enemy.
Ahead of a meeting with Collingwood in front of a capacity MCG crowd, here’s what Voss had to say.
On what went wrong against Port Adelaide:
“A few too many things. I talk about it a fair bit, we couldn’t get our hands on the football as much as we would’ve liked and didn’t get the impact we needed when we did. It took power out of our game: there are parts we need to take out of that, and we also need to lean into the body of work over a period of time and find the in between to get after this week.
“We’ve had a slightly more extended break with eight days, so it has given us an opportunity to be able to go back and train a couple of things that we’ve missed out on.”
On overcoming last week’s “bitter disappointment”:
“There have been parts around reliability that have been missing in terms of the context of the entirety of the game, but the real disappointment came over the weekend that we didn’t show up with the right attitude or the right approach. We’ve been quite reliable with how we turn up in that space, but we let ourselves down - bitterly disappointed, especially with where it sat in the context of the season.
“Like what we do every single week, we try to remain pretty consistent with the way we look at it - we deal with it, work out how we get better and turn our eyes to Collingwood. A huge game for us against an old rival with 80,000 people at the MCG: it turns your mind forward pretty fast.
“We don’t dismiss it, we address it pretty thoroughly. The reality was at an away venue, we didn’t turn up the way we needed to - and we needed to correct that pretty quickly… We’ve narrowed our focus in on our roles, the type of pressure we want to bring around the ball - Collingwood have been good at that for the entirety of the year, we need to make sure that’s spot on.”
On President Rob Priestley’s support earlier this week:
“We’ve always been aligned on where we need to go: it’s the least of the things I’m thinking about at the moment. It’s more about the care for our people and we’ve got a job to do - it’s been eyes in. To have that leadership through this period of time is important, my role in that is going to be important.”
On fan reaction:
“We have to keep focusing on what’s important, but we also acknowledge there’s a frustration and disappointment as well. We feel that, we hear that.
“What we’ve also had is tremendous support. It’s our club, and we do this for Carlton - the way through this is to stay connected as a team. The way through is to stay connected as a club. What we’re really blessed with is we get to turn up tomorrow in front of 80,000-85,000 fans. We see that as a real competitive advantage for us, we want that noise in the system, we want to energise that noise in the stadium. Passion is part of that. We certainly understand our responsibility behind that.”
On responding to added pressure in recent weeks:
“Off the performances you don’t want, there’s the expectation that of course there’s going to be a level of focus. There’s peak interest in us right now, and we can’t step away from that - but you also can’t act into it.
“There are certain things that we get to be able to do: how we show up is on us. We lock in on what we need to be able to do next: we’ve got Collingwood, and that can shift your focus pretty quickly. There’s no rest here, we look forward and we keep going.”
On the confirmed CEO transition timeline:
“Having the date is important: between now and then, I’ve spoken of the advantage of having two leaders here and what that looks like for us. Nothing changes on that front. We’ve always had that support and guidance from two important leaders: that’ll play out from the administrative side of the building and we’ll look after what we need to do.
“Nothing has changed in terms of his presence for us, it’s business as usual.”
On expectations for the rest of the year:
“We get on with business: it’s about performance and how we start to turn our form around on the field. There are exciting things to look forward to - we’ve got some youth that will be playing, some big games over the last eight weeks of the season. We want to energise that.
“What’s really important is that we connect in to our supporters: they’re very important to us. We understand there’s a style of football we want to play that they can be proud of, we can be proud of and they can connect to.”
On how Charlie Curnow returns to form:
“Persistence. I thought he competed really hard and he fought right to the end, as much as the day wasn’t working for us. From Charlie’s point of view with form, it’s about persistence and opportunity - we’ve got to try and generate opportunities for him to be able to capitalise. If he’s getting a few looks down there, we’ll be pretty happy with that.”
On looking to manage Jacob Weitering:
“A lot of players are carrying some sort of thing at this time of the year. There’s always a niggle, we’re at Round 17 and that’s what makes the season long.
“It needs to be stated that this season is live, there’s a lot to get out of it - there is nothing parked, there is nothing to be saved and nothing to protect. We are going after it.”
On potential team changes:
“There’ll be a few changes this week. I won’t declare those until they need to be, but we’ll create some change in the team.
“The two [Silvagni and Saad] you’ve already highlighted there, but as far as the other boys go, we’re managing guys at this point of the year with niggles that pop up from time to time. We manage them if we need to, and if they’re not right they don’t play - it’s pretty simple for us.”
