CARLTON AFL Senior Coach Michael Voss confirmed a pair of returns for Thursday night’s clash with Collingwood.

Coming up against the old enemy for the first time in 2026, Voss said that after missing recent games due to concussion, the Blues would be able to call on the defensive reinforcements of Jacob Weitering and Harry Dean.

Speaking to media on Tuesday morning ahead of the Peter Mac Cup, this is what Voss had to say.

On Jacob Weitering and Harry Dean’s availability:

“They’ll both be available. They trained under the protocols last week on Friday and they’ve trained fully this week. I expect them to be available, they’ll end up back in the side.

“I’ll fit Jacob back in somewhere I reckon, he’ll find a spot. They’ll be two important additions for us - both the old and the new.”

On the Collingwood rivalry:

“Every time you play against Collingwood, it’s a game that gets spoken about a lot. It’s a rivalry game. Some of those games you’re talking about, they’ve been decided by the last kick of the game. It shows what we’re billed up for, and we step into the rivalry.

“It’s the one week I get a lot of text messages from past players, who remind me of the value of this game and where they have Collingwood in the pecking order.

“We are well and truly reminded about our responsibility. We’ve been on the other side: for any rivalry to really take effect, we need to play a bigger role. This becomes an important game for us and our Club.”

On expecting a grind against Collingwood:

“You can look at teams and see the system that’s there. You can definitely see the style of football they’re trying to play and they’re difficult to score against. As a team, you have to acknowledge that when they’re good at something, you have to be able to get in the fight for longer. If we have to live in the grind, we’ll do that.

“They have speed they can put on the ball at different times and we can’t underestimate that. There’s a system behind the way they play, ‘Fly’ talks about it a fair bit. We’ll have to work our way through that, but we feel like we’ve got the cattle to be able to do it.”

On a potential dinner wager with former premiership teammate, Craig McRae:

“There hasn’t been too much on the line in recent times, I’ll have to give it a bit more thought. That glass of Shiraz will taste pretty nice if we get over the line.”

On how the review from last week transpired:

“When you lose momentum, the territory battle is front of mind. Being able to fight your way out of those scenarios is important. If you can minimise those periods of time, it goes a long way towards the result of the game.

“We acknowledge that we need to minimise those opportunities for the opposition, but also acknowledge our start at an away venue. To start the way we did was pretty powerful and the way we finished the game was pretty powerful. We’ll keep reinforcing what that looks like for us.”

On how the midfield mix looked after last week:

“I think so. But like anything, one game tells you a little bit. You’d like a run of games before you make any defined decisions on that. Giving ourselves the chance to be able to see what that looks like, it turned out to be a very wet game.

“Our clearance game was in pretty good order other than a short period of time at centre square bounce, most of the other parts of the game were looking pretty good for us. That mix is always a conversation that we’ll continue to have. We get an acute response, but let’s see what the next few games show us.”

On Patrick Cripps’ bench rotations:

“I understand there was some commentary on it, but correct me if I’m wrong - you all had him traded last week didn’t you? Now he’s playing 100 per cent game time. We do what the team needs, it’s team-first.

“We’ve got a rotation that we want to make sure we execute: there’s some immediate impact that we need to have but we also take into account that it’s the whole game we need to be able to play and bring intensity around the ball.”

On George Hewett’s selection chances this week:

“They’re all up for selection. We’ve had a couple of really good chats about it, we’re pretty transparent and don’t hide too much. We take a team-first position, he understands that. But when he comes in and plays, he’s going to have a really important role for us.”

On Harry McKay’s impact:

“Up until the weekend, he’s been trying to find what that looks like for him more permanently. But in terms of his performance on the weekend, he got the players’ player award: he was obviously very valued by his peers on the weekend.

“What he’ll be judged on externally is kicks, marks, handballs and how many goals he kicks. But he also provided a contest forward of the ball in trying circumstances, competing against two or three players and sometimes being restricted from getting to those contests.”

On continuity from a VFL fixture standpoint:

“Billy only got to 100 per cent game time last week, ‘Cotts’ will this week. We haven’t considered ‘Cotts’ at all until he found some continuity, and part of his conditioning program was to actually play considering he hasn’t played a lot of football. We’ve conditioned him through playing football, and he’s getting pretty close. Then it becomes a performance discussion.

“We’ve got to give him the best chance to do that, but I can tell you when he’s right to do that, he’ll be playing. As people have heard before, he’s one of my favourites - not just because he’s a redhead, but because he brings a lot to us as a football team, he plays an enormous role for us and he’s a team-first player. When he’s ready to go, we’ll be playing him that’s for sure.”

On discussion around draft changes for 2026:

“The Club is in constant contact. Our position is the runway we need: I don’t think anyone is debating that change is needed, but what most clubs would be afforded if they were in the same circumstances is a little bit more runway than what we’re giving clubs. We’re sitting in April and we don’t have decisions: that’s unusual for any competition across the globe, let alone Australia.

“We’re loving having [Cody] around the Club, he’s going to play some VFL for us which is an advantage. We’ll let the young man be a young man, let him go play football and enjoy his football. When the time is right, we’ll welcome him into the football club.”

On coaching his 100th game for Carlton this week:

“I had more hair when I first arrived… I’ve now got less which has impacted me significantly!

“I’ve loved my journey, I’ve absolutely loved it. Anything worthwhile achieving has ups and downs: nobody is going to say it’s smooth sailing. We’ve had to make decisions as we’ve gone, and I’ve learned a lot about myself.

“The biggest thing you want to be able to have on any club is you want to impact and have a long-lasting message for young men - not just players. I’m a coach in one part that’s coaching the Xs and Os, but we’re coaching young men to be better people - and if you get better people, you get better players. That’s where we’ve invested a lot of our time. You hope that your impact as a coach is what you’ve had on them: what I’ve learned from having coaches is sometimes you don’t know what that is until long after the fact. You take those lessons with you, as you do with any mentor.

“This has been a lifelong journey for me. From being a young man at 12 years of age, sitting down and watching the premiership in the lounge room with my Pop, watching Robert Walls and Stephen Kernahan lift the cup up. That became an aspiration from that point in my life. That’s not fulfilled yet - and I’d love to fulfil it.”