{"id":751176,"date":"2026-06-21T16:40:09","date_gmt":"2026-06-21T16:40:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/751176\/"},"modified":"2026-06-21T16:40:09","modified_gmt":"2026-06-21T16:40:09","slug":"carltons-season-could-easily-have-been-meaningless-but-is-now-very-much-alive-afl","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/751176\/","title":{"rendered":"Carlton\u2019s season could easily have been meaningless but is now very much alive | AFL"},"content":{"rendered":"

Footy can turn quickly. One minute you\u2019re seven goals up at the MCG. The next minute Kozzy Pickett is coming at you<\/a> with bazookas under both armpits. One minute you\u2019re walking into training with the snout of a microphone in your face, as you apologise for yet another fade out, and yet another coach sacking. The next minute you\u2019re in a circle while one of your teammates belts out the club song on a harmonica.<\/p>\n

Carlton really should have beaten GWS Giants by more on the weekend. In the first quarter, they kicked just one goal from 18 inside 50s. They squandered a lot of chances and had the worst of the whistle. But it was exactly the sort of game they would have found a way to lose two months ago.<\/p>\n

The Giants are a team that can slam on a lot of goals in a short amount of time. They want a fast and free game. Under former coach Michael Voss<\/a>, you suspect the Blues would have given them one<\/a>.<\/p>\n

So what has changed? Even when things were especially dire under Voss, there were still signs of a good football team waiting to burst out. The Blues would bring the pressure, the contest and the energy. But when the inevitable push came from the opposition, they\u2019d be shoved aside.<\/p>\n

There were a couple of passages that demonstrated a marked shift. One was late in the third quarter, when the Blues\u2019 four goal lead had been whittled down, and the ledger was square. The four kicks that led to Sam Walsh\u2019s after-the-siren goal were all low, 25 metre, angle-changing kicks to players making space. Two months ago, they would have been nine irons. And two months ago, Walsh would have sprayed the set shot.<\/p>\n

Carlton celebrate victory over GWS Giants that lifts the Blues to five wins in as many matches under interim coach Josh Fraser. Photograph: Mark Metcalfe\/AFL Photos\/via Getty Images<\/p>\n

Then, with GWS still pressing in the final term, there was the buildup to Matt Cottrell\u2019s second goal. It has been a long time since a Carlton side has had that kind of fluency and cohesion, that ability to calmly and cleverly transition the ball from one end of the ground to the other. Billy Wilson, in his 10th game, assumed kick-in responsibilities and booted long to neutral territory. Talor Byrne won the bobbling ball, and in about four seconds they solved problems on the hop, found the right option every time and circumvented what was frankly a pretty lax Giants team defence.<\/p>\n

Indeed, in press conferences, coach Adam Kingsley speaks like a reiki practitioner. In team huddles however, he berates them like Rostov in the film The Club<\/a>. He went hard again at three-quarter time, but his team didn\u2019t respond at all as the Blues defeated the Giants 12.16 (88) to 9.11 (65).<\/p>\n

Interim coach Josh Fraser\u2019s Blues really aren\u2019t that different to Voss\u2019s. Walsh is fitter, Patrick Cripps is freer<\/a>, their batch of kids are a few months older, and George Hewett and Blake Acres aren\u2019t kicking the dew off the grass in the reserves. They still prioritise contest and defence. Fraser still talks about connection and effort. He still talks like a stand-in coach. He talks of building depth and handing over a vastly improved team to whoever gets the job next.<\/p>\n

Carlton interim coach Josh Fraser holds court as the Blues stare down a challenge from GWS Giants. Photograph: Mark Metcalfe\/AFL Photos\/via Getty Images<\/p>\n

But there are changes. Every time GWS threatened on the weekend, Carlton were able to take the sting out of the game for three or four minutes. In similar scenarios earlier in the season, they\u2019d completely lose their bearings. Under Fraser, they\u2019ve been able and willing to reach an emotional pitch they weren\u2019t under Voss. A weight has been lifted, and a season that could easily have been meandering and meaningless is now very much alive.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s too easy in such circumstances to conclude that Voss was the problem all along, and that the new bloke is some sort of coaching genius. It\u2019s never that simple of course. Voss often spoke of the stonecutters credo \u2013 the heavily borrowed sporting philosophy of hammering away and not being discouraged when the cracks don\u2019t immediately appear. It will eventually spilt open, he kept telling us, his players and himself. His problem is that it\u2019s happened too late. The rock split at half-time of a game where he\u2019d already checked out.<\/p>\n

Voss recently returned from holiday straight into a job with Fox Footy. And on and on it goes. He was asked whether he\u2019d consider a return to coaching. \u201cNo,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

It leaves Carlton with an unusually difficult decision to make. The Blues have won five from five matches under Fraser. Yet he insists that he doesn\u2019t want to be a senior coach. Carlton has long looked for an outsider to save them \u2013 Pagan, Judd, Malthouse, Voss, Wright. Fraser doesn\u2019t look and sound like a saviour. Compare him to James Hird, who basically interviewed for a senior coaching job on live television. Compare him to Dean Solomon, the current favourite for the Essendon job whose record as an interim coach is zero wins from six games.<\/p>\n

Fraser isn\u2019t selling anything, angling for anything, or promising anything. His team keeps winning. He\u2019s no saviour, but he\u2019s a hell of a locum.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Footy can turn quickly. One minute you\u2019re seven goals up at the MCG. The next minute Kozzy Pickett…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":751177,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[560],"tags":[638,64,63,55,639,85],"class_list":["post-751176","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-afl","tag-afl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-australian-football-league","tag-australianfootballleague","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/751176","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=751176"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/751176\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/751177"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=751176"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=751176"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=751176"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}