Big man Marc Pittonet wants to remain the Blues’ number one ruck among TDK uncertainty
Carlton might be struggling, but big man Marc Pittonet has emerged as one of the competition’s best when it comes to tapwork - and he likes it that way - as questions continue to swirl about Tom De Koning’s future.
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Carlton tall Marc Pittonet doesn’t typically read his own press — but it’s gotten back to him, with the 202cm Blue wanting to hold fast to the team’s key ruck role.
The big Blue is more than happy to be tasked with primary ruck duties in what is being labelled by some as the team’s first major step to what 2026 could look like.
He jokes he doesn’t get much positivity, so when two-time All-Australian Leigh Montagna highlighted his standing in the big man game this week – Pittonet sits in the top five highest-rated rucks since the beginning of 2024 – word travelled back to him, and amid a dearth of team success, his performance has been a shining light.
Fellow tall Tom De Koning has played forward in recent weeks, with reports he has been suffering larynx trouble, in a move coach Michael Voss is adamant is not a concession that the out-of-contract star is resigned to losing him to St Kilda at the end of the season.
Regardless of what next year holds, Pittonet is living in the now.
“I enjoy it, yeah,” he said this week.
“I’m good at it, but I like kicking goals. Our forwards coach makes references to (movie) The Shawshank Redemption because I’m in his ear saying ‘just put me in the goalsquare, I might kick a goal!’.
“I’m very happy to play that role and I’ve been good at that role for a number of years, and I am someone who gets better with more games in a row so the continuity, I have always found that I get better with work.
“I do enjoy being able to play the number one role when I do get that equivalent, but I enjoy going forward and playing the other role as well.
“It (the split role with De Koning) is not as clear-cut as it proceeds.”
He sits on 77 AFL games and 98 VFL equivalents, hopeful of cracking the AFL ton before the latter.
“When I was playing twos, that’s what I was able to work on in my game – you could toy with things a bit more,” he said.
“I’ve come out of that earlier in the year a better player in that regard.”
Then there’s “that” barrel, torpedo, the Pittonet Punt – whatever you call it, his viral goal was a rare highlight from last week’s disappointing loss to Brisbane, with the ruckman revealing his thought process in the split-second moment to go big on the boot.
“I thought Nick Haynes was calling for a handball after the siren and I thought he was an idiot,” he laughed.
“Then I realised he was yelling at me to kick a torp. It didn’t occur to me to kick a torp until he started yelling at me … I don’t really do them at training, but two of my cousins punted in America at college. I used to muck around with them, which is why I kicked it more like a punt than a normal run in and barrel the hell out of it.”
Melbourne awaits on Saturday night. To say it is must-win is an understatement as the Blues – who this masthead revealed gathered at a Brunswick pub on Friday in the aftermath - desperately seek to salvage something from the final six week of this season amid a four-game losing streak.
It marks the 10th Carlton Respects match, an initiative which aims to raise awareness, funds and action for gender equality and for the prevention of violence against women.
Last year marked an alarming rise in women killed as a result of domestic violence, with the club’s pre-game ceremony set to feature 78 lights on the MCG – one for every woman killed due to domestic violence in 2024.
Pittonet, ambassador for the match, said his own partner’s precautions to violence when exercising had opened his eyes to the issue.
“I’ve got a fiancée who runs at 5 or 5.30am most mornings – runs in the dark,” he said.
“I looked at domestic violence and always thought, ‘I’m quite respectful, it doesn’t really impact me’. What hit home to me was having a conversation with my partner and her friend and they were going to buy head torches. I thought, were they going camping? They explained to me how they always wear torches when they run in the mornings, how they plan their routes, how they map that, asking me if I had them on (app) Find My Friends and if I ever checked it in the mornings. It never even occurred to me.
“For me, that started the interest into what am I not seeing? What am I not hearing? Since I’ve been involved in Carlton Respects, I’ve learned so much more about it, and I can relate to things like language being used.
“Being in a football environment that was traditionally male-dominated, it is transitioning into a male and female environment. You can see and hear things that are just ingrained behaviours that are small but they can add up if they go unchecked.
It’s on men who might not directly be the issue in domestic violence directly to contribute to the conversation to raise the awareness and bring the light that it needs so that we can reduce these numbers that are far too high.”
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