To have any prospect of beating or even competing with Port Adelaide, Carlton’s paramount on-field leaders were of paramount importance. Besieged coach, Michael Voss, needed his senior players to rise.
They didn’t. For various reasons, Patrick Cripps, Jacob Weitering and Sam Doherty couldn’t deliver for Voss, for the Blues fans, nor for their many less experienced and capable teammates.
Cripps and Weitering were physically hampered against Port.Credit: AFL Photos via Getty Images
For a team so reliant on a top half dozen – two of whom, Sam Walsh and Harry McKay, remained unavailable – the failure of Cripps and Weitering to deliver their usual output, or provide calm heads in a sea of panic, was devastating.
Voss, it follows, is running out of runway.
If Carlton sack him, with a year to run on his contract, they would do so with considerable reluctance because the brass – both Brian Cook, his successor Graham Wright, and the club board – are well aware of the playing list’s deficits.
Weitering had stayed on the field, in defiance of an ankle injury in the North Melbourne debacle, and his movement – particularly in the seminal first 30 to 40 minutes, when matched to Port’s Mitch Georgiades (five goals) – was cumbersome and he seemed restricted.
Cripps had been ill during the week and while this column had gleaned that he would definitely play, the skipper did not have the ideal preparation, on a five-day break. But he gamely took the field, like Monty Python’s amputated Black Knight, and will be judged accordingly.
Power coach Ken Hinkley had targeted Cripps, the major threat to Port’s quicker and slicker midfield, by placing Miles Bergman, a rising versatile gun (who’s being pursued by Victorian clubs now), on the captain.
It was as though Port set out to metaphorically decapitate Carlton’s leadership, a task in which Hinkley succeeded. Bergman won’t necessarily win three Brownlow votes, but his effort was the most telling of all 23 Port players.
George Martin, the famed producer of the Beatles, once described John Lennon as the mind of the fab four, Paul McCartney as the heart and George Harrison as the soul.
Miles Bergman is a trade target for Victorian clubs. Credit: AFL Photos via Getty Images
There aren’t exact analogues in this Carlton band, but Cripps would be the heart, the sentient Weitering might be the mind and Docherty, who overcame cancer and raised club spirits, the soul.
What’s Charlie Curnow’s role in this out-of-synch band? He’s an exceptionally talented soloist and capable key forward, who’s also had physical limitations this year, and while he tried, he missed shots and emerged, for the second week, goalless.
His sometime opponent, Esava Ratugolea, is no Weitering or Harris Andrews, yet was intercepting and marking as if he was Paul Roos or Ross Glendinning.
Voss defended Curnow’s effort, but, as a senior player, it didn’t cut the mustard, either.
Curnow was matched up with Esava Ratugolea.Credit: AFL Photos via Getty Images
Cripps was subdued – be it by illness or just Bergman;Weitering uncharacteristically stumbled – out-positioned in the air and on the deck (Jack Silvagni replacing him on Georgiades), and the midfield was rendered flat-footed by the nimble feet of Zak Butters, Connor Rozee and Bergman.
The senior core were not composed with the ball.
One conclusion that can be drawn from this Carlton carnage is that, far from representing trade bait, Walsh is the most indispensable player the Blues own. He alone has the running and ball-winning capacity that marks the effective modern midfield. The Blues, as they know, are one-paced and desperately need quicker legs, plus superior ball users. Adam Cerra, who has some smarts, isn’t a repeat speed runner, either.
Their fleet of small forwards is inadequate, in comparison with their next two opponents, Collingwood and the Brisbane Lions.
Finals can be dismissed, having entered the realm of “mathematically possible” – a euphemism for “no hope.” Perhaps, this is for the best. The Blues can begin planning for 2026 and 2027, in the knowledge that major surgery, not simply tinkering, will be required.
“They think the season is done and they played like it,” was how Leigh Montagna, summarised the Carlton effort on Fox Footy, whose Jason Dunstall, seldom given to over-statement, called the first half “insipid.”
Voss’s composure in the post-match media conference, on the other hand, was impressive. He did not castigate players, and the language used was striking – it was all “we” and “us” and he was insistent that this wasn’t a true reflection of his Blues.
“We didn’t have the effort from the start,” said Voss. “It’s time to come together.“
Composed, measured, and admirable in his unwillingness to single out others – “this is a collective accountability” – Voss’s future is still in the hands of others, namely the leaders who couldn’t rise in his defence, and those, headed by Wright, calling the shots above.
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