Rival Showdown assistant coaches Michael Voss and Scott Camporeale in the frame for Carlton job
Two assistant coaches who will be working at Adelaide Oval on Saturday evening could be in line to be the next senior coach at Carlton, writes Michelangelo Rucci in his latest Rucci’s Roast.
How do you judge assistant coaches as prospective AFL senior mentors? Showdown 47 features two well-experienced men on each side of the Crows-Port Adelaide divide who could become the long-awaited saviour at Carlton.
Michael Voss has been here before. The Power’s senior assistant to Ken Hinkley was linked to Carlton — among other jobs — in 2007 when North Melbourne premiership mentor Dennis Pagan was dismissed in-season at Princes Park (for Brett Ratten).
More than a decade later, the Brownlow Medallist is again a man in favour among some powerful Blues powerbrokers seeking Brendon Bolton’s successor.
Scott Camporeale simply has been at Carlton before. He just needs to decide if AFL senior coaching is his drive — and the timing certainly works for him considering this season is all about bringing much-loved sons home to restore “club culture”.
Camporeale played 233 AFL games with the Blues after leaving the SANFL to start his big-league career with a premiership in 1995.
He is now in his ninth season at the Adelaide Football Club where his coaching resume includes taking up the toughest job ever handed to an assistant coach — holding together the Crows for the end of the 2015 season after the death of Phil Walsh.
It was an impressive “cameo” — 11 games for a 7-4 win-loss count, including two stunning victories: Showdown 39 to honour Walsh and the dramatic elimination final against the Western Bulldogs at the MCG.
Most notable in Camporeale’s stand-in stint as Crows coach was the maturity in his public presentations, particularly at media conferences where previously he had appeared to enjoy scoring points or emphasising he knew much more than his inquisitors.
Camporeale is very much joined at the hip to current Crows senior coach Don Pyke in one of the AFL’s strongest coaching partnerships. But he needs to decide — while measuring his off-field obligations to a building business — if this is the time to stand again on his own feet while lifting Carlton from the league’s cellar.
Voss is certainly ready to coach again.
There is no question — despite how tough the Port Adelaide fans mark him — that Voss is a better prospect as an AFL coach today than he was when he answered Brisbane’s SOS at the end of 2008 while preparing to advance his coaching apprenticeship as an assistant at West Coast.
Voss coached the Lions for five seasons with a 42-1-64 win-draw-record — and took Brisbane to finals in his first season in 2009, breaking a four-year drought for the Queensland club.
Voss clearly was learning on the job at a club falling into decay after the remarkable three-peat premiership run in which he was captain for Leigh Matthews’ Lions.
Voss — as one of his influential backers at Princes Park asserts — is sounder as a coaching prospect today for all his experiences at the Lions and, after five years, at the Power.
“I’ve been exposed to more things,” Voss told SEN1629 of his development as a coach a decade after being presented as a favourite son answering the call to be a saviour at Brisbane.
“And because of I’ve made a few mistakes along the way, I’ve been able to correct them. That is the biggest thing I take out of the first (coaching experience) to the next one.
“I have a real knowledge base (this time). I have a few more resources to tap into.
“I am stronger in my views and philosophies about how you do things — from basic management to training philosophies to how to prepare players to even game style.
“The landscape (in AFL football) is extremely different (a decade on from the 2009 return to Brisbane). The landscape has changed, but the fundamentals of coaching have not.”
Some at Carlton will watch Showdown 47 at Adelaide Oval on Saturday evening with greater interest than usual. And it shall be fascinating how Camporeale and Voss present themselves while knowing they are being watched from afar.
TOMORROW: “Ryding” with Sam “Sauce” Jacobs
REALITY BITES
Just how many turned up at Jiangwan Stadium in Shanghai for Port Adelaide’s third official China game — the AFL recorded 9412 — remains a key point among those who are cynical of Australian football taking to the world.
How many Chinese locals are truly prepared to watch Australia’s Game?
Port Adelaide president David Koch has found the answer in the television figures from Chinese networks that carried the Power-St Kilda game live — 3.5 million viewers, making the Shanghai game the most-watched on the AFL calendar.
This increases Port Adelaide’s corporate prospects between Australia and China. Koch says the Shanghai experience is now making up 12 per cent of the Power’s revenue base with money that was never to come if Port Adelaide stayed stuck to its 5015 postcode.
HOME RUNS
Major League Baseball’s eagerness to take its game “across the pond” will continue after the weekend’s Boston Red Sox-New York Yankees two-game series at London’s recent Olympic Stadium (that is now home to English Premier League club West Ham United).
It will be the National League’s turn to put on the show with the Chicago Cubs and St Louis Cardinals playing in London in 2020.
The American League super rivals of the Red Sox and Yankees put on the first Major League series in Europe with big hitting and big crowds.
“It felt big, it felt important,” Yankees manager Aaron Boone said of the London venture that follows MLB games in Japan, Mexico and Australia.
There were some challenges in fitting out London Stadium (as there were at the SCG in 2014 when it hosted the Los Angeles Dodgers and Arizona Diamondbacks.
West Ham insisted there was to be no tampering of the natural-grass pitch, so MLB officials put down an artificial pitch and clay on the plastic.
The field was smaller than any MLB ballpark in the US — 330 feet to the left and right fields and 385 feet across centre-field. And the batters made it known as they knocked up 30 runs (17-13) in Game One and 20 (12-8) in Game Two.
TWEET OF THE DAY
“Carlton, we’re back! Don’t get ahead of ourselves, but start booking for the grand final ..”
Former Blues player DANIEL GORRINGE
QUOTE OF THE DAY
“I think if it came up, players would love to play. But I wouldn’t say there’s a real strong demand. It’s not quite like NRL. The hard thing is when to schedule it and your responsibility to your employer, your club.”
West Coast premiership captain — and South Australian — SHANNON HURN on State of Origin.
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