{"id":53871,"date":"2025-08-08T21:44:04","date_gmt":"2025-08-08T21:44:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/53871\/"},"modified":"2025-08-08T21:44:04","modified_gmt":"2025-08-08T21:44:04","slug":"michael-voss-hollow-joy-after-carlton-blues-board-backing-will-see-out-coaching-contract-press-conference-comments-latest-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/53871\/","title":{"rendered":"Michael Voss hollow joy after Carlton Blues board backing, will see out coaching contract, press conference comments, latest news"},"content":{"rendered":"

One day after receiving board backing to retain his position<\/a>, Carlton coach Michael Voss has spoken of his \u201chollow joy\u201d at the reassurance but maintained the situation had been overplayed externally. <\/p>\n

Voss also bristled at persistent questioning of his game-style and his side\u2019s shortcomings this year. <\/p>\n

On Thursday, after a marathon five-hour board meeting on Wednesday evening, the Blues confirmed the 50-year-old would see out his contract, which runs through next year, despite the club\u2019s issues in 2025. <\/p>\n

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Carlton has fallen well short of expectations this year, winning just seven of 20 games following consecutive finals appearances. <\/p>\n

But incoming chief executive Graham Wright, after carefully examining the club\u2019s football program, endorsed Voss as Carlton\u2019s mentor for a fifth season, with the board rubber-stamping that recommendation. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt sort of feels a little bit like hollow joy, in some ways,\u201d Voss told reporters on Friday morning when asked for his thoughts on the reassurance. <\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s no contentment in how we\u2019ve found ourselves here and how it\u2019s played out, or feeling like there\u2019s a contentment in being able to get that reassurance that you get to see out your contract. <\/p>\n

\u201cBut there\u2019s also gratitude and a privilege to be able to continue to lead this football club, and to be able to have that sense of direction, to be able to attack not just this last three weeks but what next season looks like.\u201d<\/p>\n

Voss was appreciative of the \u201ctremendous support\u201d he\u2019d received from the club\u2019s fans but said the focus had shifted to what comes next. <\/p>\n

\u201cWhether that\u2019s turning up at open training sessions and the dialogue I\u2019ve had with our supporters, and the reinforcement about what they love that we\u2019re doing … that interaction has been hugely supportive, and I really appreciate that,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

\u201cOur eyes come firmly fixed on what we need to do next, and the next thing we have in front of us is another game. <\/p>\n

\u201cBut what it does enable us to be able to do is, at the right time, be able to think about \u2018how do we progress this thing?\u2019 And \u2018how do we improve from where we are?\u2019 Because, obviously, we want to be better.\u201d<\/p>\n

Can Voss turn the Blues around in 2026? | 02:28<\/p>\n

Pressed on how uncertain he was about his future beyond this season, Voss said the external \u201ctheatre\u201d painted a vastly different picture to what was happening behind closed doors. <\/p>\n

\u201cI think where the theatre is on the outside is very, very different to what\u2019s happening on the inside,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

\u201cWhile that discussion goes on on the outside, that\u2019s for them to talk about. It\u2019s not for me to talk about, it\u2019s to be able to get on with the job that we\u2019ve got in front of us. <\/p>\n

\u201cWhen we turned up here on Tuesday, it was about our game review and quite a normal day \u2014 it might surprise you. On Wednesday, we turned up and trained, it was quite a normal day for us. <\/p>\n

\u201cSo, nothing really changed, and that might come quite surprising to you, but that\u2019s certainly the way I felt. It was business as usual, and that\u2019s what we carried on with.\u201d<\/p>\n

But while he suggested his circumstances were sensationalised, the 1996 Brownlow Medallist and former Brisbane Lions captain couldn\u2019t deny that the cameras and people eyeing his every move was \u201cdifferent\u201d. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt was like The Truman Show there at one stage: \u2018man has coffee, man drives out of Ikon Park, man turns up to training, man goes to board meeting\u2019,\u201d Voss joked of the ordeal. <\/p>\n

\u201cThat was a bit strange. And to be honest, it probably did elevate it (the situation) a little bit. But again, that theatre of what was happening and what was being spoken about, five-hour board meetings and all these sorts of things \u2014 it was quite different to what it\u2019s felt like inside. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve all sort of been waiting for that absolute sense of direction, but at the same time, now it\u2019s made, (and) there\u2019s an element of just continue to move forward.\u201d<\/p>\n

Free Agent Silvagni has ‘antennas up’ | 01:46<\/p>\n

Voss said the detail of how and when he found out from Wright that his job was safe \u201cdoesn\u2019t really matter\u201d. <\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s obviously been a process been driven to arrive at that particular decision, and from mine now, it\u2019s about eyes in and eyes forward, and that\u2019s what we\u2019ll so,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

An optimistic Blues boss said there was still \u201cplenty to get out of the season\u201d for the club but bristled at persistent questioning over game-style improvements. <\/p>\n

In particular, Voss was probed on the idea that the Blues shifted focus mid-season from correcting defensive issues to correcting ball movement issues. <\/p>\n

\u201cNo, that\u2019s what you said, I didn\u2019t say that,\u201d a testy Voss responded. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re going to continue to value our defence. Where our points of improvement need to be is clearly how we finish (at the other end). <\/p>\n

\u201cThe brand and the style will obviously be a continued discussion, and we\u2019ll look at those at the right time \u2014 we\u2019re constantly reviewing that \u2014 but in terms of what we want to make sure we value, that doesn\u2019t shift too much. <\/p>\n

\u201cAnd we\u2019ve been pretty strong on that for most of the year, but that doesn\u2019t mean that we don\u2019t have points of improvement. And you highlighted what one of those has been, but to say that it\u2019s been a shift of focus, that would be incorrect.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"One day after receiving board backing to retain his position, Carlton coach Michael Voss has spoken of his…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":53872,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[64,63,44834,44844,3239,44840,44841,44833,44837,44845,44839,1119,43053,25532,44836,3231,6179,663,44842,3257,44835,44838,13214,44843,85,44832],"class_list":["post-53871","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-ball-movement-issues","tag-board-backing","tag-carlton-blues","tag-carlton-board","tag-conference-comments","tag-consecutive-finals-appearances","tag-correcting-ball-movement","tag-five-hour-board","tag-five-hour-board-meetings","tag-football-club","tag-football-program","tag-graham-wright","tag-hollow-joy","tag-jack-jovanovski","tag-jack-silvagni","tag-luke-beveridge","tag-man-drives","tag-michael-voss","tag-open-training-sessions","tag-receiving-board-backing","tag-right-time","tag-shifted-focus-mid-season","tag-sports","tag-testy-response"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53871","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=53871"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53871\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/53872"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=53871"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=53871"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=53871"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}