Carlton president Rob Priestly says it’s all about the next eight weeks at Ikon Park, but the Blues’ problems run deeper than that. Whatever decision is made at the end of the season about the future of senior coach Michael Voss, who is contracted for 2026, the list needs surgery and the top AFL teams are playing a game style that has moved beyond the contested-ball brand at which Carlton excels. Ahead of Friday night’s MCG clash with Collingwood, we asked a former AFL list boss and a former senior coach how to fix Carlton.

The AFL competition is akin to walking through a minefield. It takes no prisoners. Such is Carlton in 2025 – seemingly needing to navigate danger at every turn.

Carlton, like Essendon, are being scrutinised more forensically than others who are failing to perform in recent times. That is the reality of being one of the “big four” clubs in Victoria. The demands are greater, the repercussions even stronger.

Tom De Koning and the Blues training at Ikon Park this week.Credit: Getty Images

But rarely do a team’s struggles come down to just the players and their coach. The genesis of the Blues’ current problems can be traced back a number of years.

Corey Durdin, Jack Carroll, Jesse Motlop, Ollie Hollands, Lachie Cowan, Jaxon Binns, Ashton Moir, Billy Wilson, Jagga Smith and Harry O’Farrell represent the collective value of 10 first and second-round selections in the five AFL national drafts since 2020. They have played 233 AFL games from a possible 2507 matches during that period. A period during which they finished 13th, ninth, fifth, eighth and currently 11th on the ladder.

These players are in a group of 23 first and second-round national draft selections since 2015.
Names that include Jacob Weitering, Harry McKay, Charlie Curnow, Tom De Koning, Sam Walsh and Brodie Kemp until 2019, but significantly fewer of note since (with respect to Jagga Smith, who is injured and unavailable in 2025).

Therein lies part of the problem impacting Carlton now. Limited draft returns since 2020 have been exacerbated by an unbalanced salary cap model desperate to retain the above players drafted before 2019 (including Patrick Cripps), while absorbing excessive contracts for the likes of Mitch McGovern and Zac Williams.

This situation appears similar to one I........

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