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Hewett, too, led the Blues in both disposals (22) and tackles (7) in their loss to North Melbourne last week \u2013 although his average numbers are well down on his career-best 2025 campaign.<\/p>\n
Speaking on Fox Footy\u2019s AFL 360 on Wednesday night, Longmire \u2013 who coached Hewett during the on-baller\u2019s six seasons at Sydney \u2013 said Voss wouldn\u2019t have made the call because Hewett had dropped his standards.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy first reaction was it certainly wouldn\u2019t be for a discipline thing or anything like that,\u201d Longmire told AFL 360. \u201cHe is a salt of the earth person, George Hewett. One of those blokes you\u2019d love to have at your footy club. A ripper, an absolute A-grade person.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe only conclusion I could come to would be they\u2019re trying to change up their midfield mix. So it\u2019ll be really interesting to see what they do with their midfield group (Thursday) night and that first centre bounce, who replaces him in that midfield group?<\/p>\n
\u201cSometimes you feel like you need to (send a message as a coach) \u2026 maybe it is a message considering he\u2019s a best and fairest winner from last year, but it wouldn\u2019t be for his lack of trying or lack of tackle or lack of pressure. Sometimes you make a decision based upon that, the highly talented player where you\u2019d be able to say: \u2018That\u2019s enough, we\u2019re not just relying on talent here, we need to reward hard work.\u2019 But that\u2019s not George Hewett, he\u2019s a hard worker.\u201d<\/p>\n
AFL 360 co-host Gerard Whateley said it was a \u201cjolting\u201d decision, while Melbourne legend Garry Lyon said he \u201cdidn\u2019t see it coming\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a statement piece,\u201d Lyon told AFL 360.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe (Voss) wouldn\u2019t have done it on a whim. I went back and had a look at it \u2013 we did the game last week \u2013 and we all see things differently when we\u2019re outside the tent, so what he (Hewett) has been coached clearly Michael has a bit of an issue with.<\/p>\n
\u201cExternally watching as a bystander, he wasn\u2019t the worst. He was their leading possession-winner in the game last week against North Melbourne and, more significantly for me given what I\u2019ve been banging on about over the last few weeks, he was their leading tackler.<\/p>\n
George Hewett of the Blues. Picture: Michael Willson\/AFL Photos via Getty ImagesSource: Getty Images<\/p>\n
\u201cBut surprises are good sometimes, because it opens your eyes to what\u2019s going on at a footy club.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat will happen \u2013 I\u2019m sure of this \u2013 is that the rest of that group will sit up and take notice, because I know he\u2019s an enormously respected player and he does things right and he\u2019s the sort of guy you\u2019d love to have in the team. If he goes then they\u2019re all in danger. So it\u2019s a message.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dual premiership Kangaroo David King said he was surprised by Carlton\u2019s decision considering it was already without Jacob Weitering \u2013 \u201csometimes you lean on your senior players for a bit more\u201d \u2013 but added it could have a positive impact on the team.<\/p>\n
\u201cI like a statement. If you\u2019re going to go down, you go down on your terms,\u201d King told Fox Footy\u2019s First Crack Preview.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019ve got to set a standard for the football club \u2013 and we\u2019ve been asking that of Essendon and asking that of Carlton \u2013 and sometimes you\u2019ve got to jolt the whole place to say: \u2018If he can miss, as good a player as he is and as solid citizen as he is, if we\u2019re prepared to leave him out, don\u2019t you let us down in A, B and C.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Premiership coach John Longmire has been left stunned by Carlton\u2019s decision to drop \u201csalt of the earth\u201d Blue…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":593346,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[560],"tags":[638,64,63,689,55,639,3423,13120,3499,289621,3496,289650,1119,667,10145,17982,61,2105,30404,285052,647,7198,36657,677,668,289648,17989,85,289649,48275,660],"class_list":{"0":"post-593345","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-afl","8":"tag-afl","9":"tag-au","10":"tag-australia","11":"tag-australia-and-new-zealand","12":"tag-australian-football-league","13":"tag-australianfootballleague","14":"tag-ben-waterworth","15":"tag-centre-bounce","16":"tag-daniel-pockett","17":"tag-discipline-thing","18":"tag-dual-premiership","19":"tag-earth-person","20":"tag-football-club","21":"tag-footy-club","22":"tag-garry-lyon","23":"tag-george-hewett","24":"tag-gerard-whateley","25":"tag-getty-images-inc","26":"tag-john-longmire","27":"tag-kangaroo-david-king","28":"tag-melbourne","29":"tag-michael-willson","30":"tag-midfield-mix","31":"tag-oceania","32":"tag-press-conference","33":"tag-selection-bombshell","34":"tag-senior-players","35":"tag-sports","36":"tag-statement-piece","37":"tag-talented-player","38":"tag-victoria"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/593345","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=593345"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/593345\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/593346"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=593345"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=593345"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=593345"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}