Detailing our GM of Football appointment, Trade & Draft, increasing our Club’s connection and a lot more, it’s all on the agenda as Graham Wright provides an extensive update.
On transitioning into the role as Carlton CEO:
"It's been great. I've been here for a long period of time, nine or 10 months so I felt very welcomed in before starting officially in the role. I've had a good lead in with Brian and it's been a good few weeks.
"Particularly across other areas of the business, I've come from a footy background, but being able to to spend that time learning from Brian and also learning from the GMs in those areas as well."
On Chris Davies now leading the football department:
"We're rapt to be able to get Chris to come across. He's been highly sought after from a number of clubs, but also to the AFL over a period of time. The moon's aligned for him in relation to Port Adelaide with the changes with Ken (Hinkley), so that was one thing, that it was time for a change for him and Port Adelaide.
"He's a Carlton supporter, (who) certainly saw that coming here to a big Melbourne club, one as strong as Carlton, was advantageous for him as well, and the right time for him and his family. He's a really strong leader. I've worked with him on a number of working parties with the AFL across the years and have a good knowledge of his work. He's strong, fair, has a really good knowledge and understanding of the AFL industry. Great relationships with stakeholders, great relationships with players and people and player managers, and I think he'll be a great asset to our club.
"A strong leader, but he's empathetic, great values, it fits our value set as a football club, humble, hardworking and as I said quite smart and diligent. I feel overall he'll add an enormous amount to to what we're doing, hopefully complement the good people we've already got in our football department."
On Chris' involvement in the current/upcoming trade period, and initial objectives stepping into the role:
"He'll come in next week for a few days and will certainly have a decent amount of oversight of what we're doing through that period with Nick (Austin) and (Michael) Voss. We'll have a lot of people supporting those guys, including myself. It'll be a really important trade period for us, but no doubt Chris will be around during that period.
"He'll have oversight on everything, and it should be his area, he's got great experience in there as well. Me having done the role as well, we're able to to link in with each other and I can give him my insights on where I see footy. We're going to have a number of appointments to make across our coaching area and some changes to our list and those type of things, but all things he's dealt with before. I'm sure he'll bring his own slant on it, and we'll put together a great footy department that can take us forward into 2026.
"(He's) strong leader, but he's empathetic, great values, it fits our values set as a football club. Humble, hardworking, smart and diligent. I feel overall he'll add an enormous amount to what we're doing, (and) hopefully complement the good people we've already got in our football department."
On approaching filling coaching positions and solidifying the coaching structure:
"A lot of conversations and Vossy's already having those, he's already had a conversation with Chris around that. He's supported by Len Villani and myself at this stage around those conversations and they'll be ongoing over the next month. But I would have thought by the time we get to the middle of October we'll have all of those appointments sorted, and we're looking to push forward."
On Jack Silvagni and Tom De Koning departing the club:
"I think both guys being free agents makes it difficult for us. I think Tom really wanted to stay, but it became a financial decision for him and us in fairness, and the Jack Silvagni one was that Jack's an unrestricted free agent, we don't have a say outside of wanting him to stay as well, and we made that very clear that we wanted Jack to stay. He received a far greater offer at another club and chose to to leave.
"When you've got players leave under free agency, it's always difficult and you'd prefer (them to stay) particularly when we'd put offers to them as well. But we understand that's professional footy and the make up of the game now, hopefully we're able to attract some people as well."
The latest on Charlie Curnow:
"I think we've been very clear from the start that Charlie's a required player, contracted player for the next four years, and we want to see him finish his career here. It's been a big 12 months for Charlie, he's had two or three operations across that period of time, he's away on leave at the moment. We're expecting him back in the next couple of weeks prior to the best and fairest, and he'll be a Carlton player going forward."
On the Club's recruiting approach for upcoming trade and draft periods:
"We feel that we'll be really active. We've also got potentially Harry Dean and a couple of NGA players that we're considering, so we're really mindful of the fact that we may have to match bids for players, which is obviously topical at the moment. We're hopeful of being able to do that and then being able to bring in some players ourselves that can complement what we're after from a skill set or a positional or need that we have, and we'll look to fill those, but be active and open-minded to what else is out there for us.
"We need to add players in a positional sense to certain areas, hopefully bring in two or three draft picks as well, but certainly try and add to that depth across the board... I feel that we had a number of injuries at the back end of the year, so we had a number of guys not playing, and all of those players required operations. Jagger Smith and Nic Newman and those guys, we've got a number of guys who should be available and ready to go once we hit pre-season."
An insight into the father-son space:
"We've put in a submission to the AFL around not wanting to see any change. Change muted in August last year, which will come into effect for 2025, we have actually haven't been through that iteration of those those rule changes yet, which will see clubs pay a far greater price for for matching bids. So we we know that that'll happen, basically from 2025 onwards, and we feel that there needs to be a two or three year runway and consultation through that period to see if it requires any further change. And there might be that, but we're hopeful that it will be one that happens further down the track."
On Carlton's AFLW team's current season:
"Our team has been fantastic and started the year really well, even against Hawthorn where we lost that game by eight points, we were still right in the game with three or four minutes to go, so their performance across the board has been fantastic.
"Really exciting, exciting ball movement, speed, being able to and wanting to take risky kicks through the middle of the ground, but bringing the ball back in and moving it quickly is really exciting to see.
"I think it's fantastic, we've had great support from members and fans alike, we've had great attendances at both our games so far, and we've got another home game this weekend and another three after that. Great support for our W team and we look forward to the rest of the year, and we've got another eight games to go, so hopefully there's something on the end of it."
On increasing member connection and belonging:
"We had a survey went out to our members on Friday last week, we were asking for feedback and input into what we can do better or what we what we haven't been doing well, and what they'd like to see in the future. So we're really hoping our members take the time to look into our survey and fill those out, it might take 10 minutes or so, but we find that really imperative to what we want to do going forward to how we support our members and membership base.
"I think it's important all the time that we we connect with our members all the way through, not just at survey time, but that we're open and there's a connection with our club from a membership perspective."
On the priorities for the club at the moment:
"I don't think there's any sort of one absolute priority. I think footy, from a men's perspective is important right now because we've got a number of changes to make, and obviously with the new GM of football coming in, so that'll have priority, but I don't think I'll put any one thing in front of the other right now. Its being open and and clear about giving my attention to to every area that needs it and and trying to make sure that we value every area of the footy club. The W program's massive to us right at the moment, into our consumer membership area, there's a lot of areas of the football club that need attention, but we've got a lot of good people too."
On instilling the Carlton first mentality:
"I think any decision that we make or any direction we go to, it's with the Carlton-first mentality, that it becomes about the football club. We're a football club that's owned by our members and it should be Carlton first, every decision we make is about making the Carlton Football Club as good as it possibly can be for all the people who work in it, but also for our members and supporters."
