AFL 2022 Carlton v Collingwood: Hunt begins to cover loss of Jason Weitering to a shoulder injury
A tackle on Sam Walsh slipped high in the dying second close to goal. Do Blues fans have reason to be frustrated? VOTE NOW
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Carlton is on the hunt for key defensive reinforcements in Wednesday night’s midseason rookie draft after losing superstar backman Jacob Weitering to a shoulder injury.
Coach Michael Voss is bracing to lose Weitering for about six weeks in another massive injury blow for the Blues after the defender hurt his right AC joint in Sunday night’s thrilling four-point loss to Collingwood.
But there was controversy late as the Blues were robbed of a last-second shot on goal when umpires missed a high free kick on Sam Walsh.
Josh Daicos made contact to Walsh’s forehead and shoulder in a last-second tackle, but the infringement was missed as Carlton charged home from 23 points down in a pulsating fourth-term.
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Carlton has already lost key defenders Liam Jones (not vaccinated), Oscar McDonald (back) and Mitch McGovern (hamstring), meaning Voss may have to turn to Caleb Marchbank for the clash against Essendon after the bye.
Former North Melbourne tall and Glenelg key defender Sam Durdin, 25, could also appeal to the Blues in Wednesday night’s draft.
Voss said Weitering, who was one of the two best key defenders in the game, may need surgery in another massive test of the back line after conceding 18 marks inside 50m to the Pies on Sunday.
“We think it will be more on the major end than the minor end, so he will go see the surgeon early this week to decide whether he has surgery,” Voss said.
“If it ventures into that space we are probably talking a more longer term five or six weeks (out).
“There are some challenges in that and I have spoken to the group about that – you get thrown spanners, every team does throughout the season.
“We have been able to find a way and that is the challenge ahead of us. We go to the break on the turn 8-3 and we have increased our own expectations about what our hopes are for this season and we have been able to do that by being able to manoeuvre through a few things.”
Weitering injured his right shoulder in a heavy collision with Jordan De Goey in the first term at the MCG.
Voss said another key defender from the state leagues was a consideration. The Blues can take two picks in the mid-season draft.
“We will have a look at it, no doubt. We will be certainly looking to take those spots if we can,” Voss said.
“What we have to be really careful of though is that we are not chasing something, either, that we don’t need to chase.
“We are not going to compromise our list build for that.
“While I would like to think that there are a couple of specifics we would to go after, we also have to look at it and say ‘What long-term role do we want to play here’?”
Voss said Collingwood deserved the four points on Sunday despite the late Carlton charge.
He was proud the players fought back, but admitted their ball movement played into Collingwood’s high-pressure game style.
Voss said the non-free kick to Walsh was technically there.
“It was a hard one to look at when you have got 80,000 people screaming and there’s a clash of bodies that are everywhere,” Voss said.
“If you look it as a pure, anything across the neck is clearly a free kick isn’t it?
“But that is not what we focus on. In reality, we put ourselves in that position so you would not like to be there in the first place.”
Magpies hold their nerve to deny desperate Blues
Collingwood is storming into September contention after upsetting bitter foes Carlton in one of the most anticipated affairs between the arch rivals since the late 1980s, holding the Blues off late in one of the games of the season.
Collingwood led by 23 points midway through the final term before the Blues stormed home in a frenetic finish, with Jack Silvagni presented the chance to claim a miraculous come-from-the-clouds win with a hurried snap in the dying stages.
But the ball sailed across the face, narrowly missing as the Pies held on for a famous four-point win.
The Magpies are now only percentage behind the top eight and have beaten two top-four contenders back-to-back following last week’s boilover win against Fremantle.
The Pies’ second stirring win on the trot was made sweeter by the fact they now claim bragging rights over their biggest enemy, going one-up in the 130-year-long feud — 129 wins to 128 — in front of a 80,627-strong crowd at the MCG.
Conversely, the Blues’ loss was made more bitter by an injury to star full-back Jacob Weitering, who was subbed off midway through the opening term with a shoulder injury after colliding with Jordan De Goey.
The defensive chasm left by Weitering’s absence was felt throughout the contest, with the Magpies claiming 18 marks inside their forward 50m compared to Carlton’s nine.
The Pies triumph also marks coach Craig McRae’s first over old triple-premiership teammate Michael Voss — the pair played together through the Brisbane Lions dynasty — in what was another intriguing subplot in arguably the biggest home-and-away clash since pre-Covid.
Speaking of subplots, Mason Cox — whose career has looked down for the count multiple times since the American Pie became a Collingwood hero in that preliminary final win over Richmond in 2018 — again proved the doubters wrong when he followed up a crowd-lifting goal early in the last quarter with a huge pack mark in the defensive 50m moments later.
For all the criticism Cox draws, he holds a natural sense of something many don’t — X-factor — and with the Pies down on big-man stocks, his intriguing career appears set for a twist or two yet.
Fellow big man Darcy Cameron put in another notable performance in the ruck, with Pat Lipinski and Jordan De Goey supported by the strong-tackling Taylor Adams and hard-running Jack Crisp throughout the rousing win.
Blues trio Adam Cerra, Sam Walsh and George Hewett dominated the stats-sheet as usual but the ‘Carlton crew’ couldn’t quite force their side over the line despite leading a frenetic finish.
NEW LIFE IN OLD RIVALRY
The old rivalry was back to its bitter best. The arch enemies haven’t met in a final since 1988, with Mick Malthouse’s defection to Carlton at the end of 2012 marking the only chapter of real prominence in the storied rivalry since.
But the MCG was gripped by a finals-like atmosphere on Sunday, with the top-four Blues flying and the revived Pies primed following a boilover win in the west.
It took only three minutes for tempers to boil, too, with Taylor Adams wrestling Patrick Cripps over the boundary line to start an old-fashioned scuffle before rows of passionate fans who suddenly found themselves ringside.
The melee didn’t quite turn into the all-in brawl it might’ve in the 1970s, but it did mark the beginning of the famed rivalry’s renaissance.
CHARLIE’S BIG BENDER
At 192cm and 92kg, you’re not supposed to pounce on a loose ball and bomb home a 45-metre snap under pressure.
But as soon as Charlie Curnow brushed Jeremy Howe aside to gather the Sherrin and swing onto his booming right boot late in the second term, the ‘G was gripped by a collective sense the ball had only one path – sailing over the goal umpire’s hat for a miraculous major.
Of course it did.
The stirring snap for home strengthened Curnow’s Coleman Medal case, with the big Blue adding a further four majors to his league-leading tally.
SCOREBOARD
MAGPIES 3.4 4.8 7.12 11.13 (79)
BLUES 2.2 6.2 6.7 11.9 (75)
BEST
Magpies: Crisp, Lipinski, De Goey, J.Daicos, Noble, Sidebottom
Blues: Walsh, Hewett, Cerra, Docherty, Curnow, Saad
GOALS
Magpies: Henry 3, Sidebottom 2, Lipinski 2, Cox, Elliot, Brown, De Goey
Blues: Curnow 4, Owies 2, Cripps, Cerra, Durdin, Motlop, Walsh
INJURIES
Magpies: Nil
Blues: Jacob Weitering (shoulder)
UMPIRES
Donlon, Fleer, Heffernan
CROWD
80,627 at the MCG
VOTES
Crisp 3
Walsh 2
Lipinski 1
McRae a Cox ‘believer’ as big man delivers
Collingwood coach Craig McRae says he remains a Mason Cox “believer” after the polarising big man’s influential performance on Sunday.
The American Pie’s seven-year career includes a dominant preliminary final performance against Richmond in 2018 and another dazzling September display against West Coast in 2020 but has looked nearly over on multiple occasions, with the 211cm former college basketballer failing to reproduce his match-winning best in recent seasons.
With Collingwood short on key-position stocks, however, Cox is back in the 22 and turned heads in the thrilling win over arch-rival Carlton with four contested marks and a crucial last-quarter goal.
The 31-year-old particularly impressed with a towering pack mark in the Magpies’ defensive 50m in the dying stages.
Post-game, Pies coach Craig McRae said he was still a Cox “believer”.
“Mason’s a talking point, isn’t he? I must admit, I’ve always been a believer in players,” McRae said.
“I believe in Mason, and today, he got to show what he’s capable of.
“I haven’t really seen him play at that level for a while, so it was really pleasing he did his job for the team.”
Collingwood almost gave up the win after leading by 23 points in the final term, with McRae conceding his team had to improve in the dying stages to keep pushing for finals.
“Footy does that, doesn’t it? It’s just never done, the game’s never finished, you’ve got to finish it,” he said.
“I think earlier in the year we lost a couple of games, in particular around not really knowing how to win or kill the clock.
“I thought today we did that better, but obviously we’ve got more work to do.”
McRae, taking the four points, can now look forward to a dinner on opposition coach Michael Voss after winning a bet against his old Brisbane Lions teammate.
“We had a little side bet, loser pays dinner,” McRae revealed.
“Maybe a nice steak somewhere, and a glass of red would be nice.
“He definitely owes me one.”
Why the Magpies chose McRae over Voss
Before games during the Brisbane Lions’ premiership dynasty, Michael Voss would deliberately steer well clear of Craig McRae.
They were the best of mates, but the Lions’ brains trust under Leigh Matthews and Graeme ‘Gubby’ Allan liked to split the team into separate groups pre-game in line with their personality profiles.
Voss was renowned for being very intense in the rooms, while McRae and now Collingwood head of strategy Justin Leppitsch would always be buzzing around busily like mosquitos in summer.
“They’re very different units,” Lions two-time premiership player Tim Notting said of McRae and Voss.
“We got put into certain groups and we were the same, so Fly (McRae) would specifically have to stay away from Vossy and Browny (Jonathan Brown) and those sort of players because getting pumped up for Fly too early was not good.
“We were supposed to be joking around and having a bit of fun and that’s what we did and that’s what Fly was really good at.
“It seemed to work pretty well.”
Voss and McRae will forever be bonded by the three premierships they shared at Brisbane, with two of those grand final wins ironically coming at Collingwood’s expense.
They regularly meet up to this day, catching up for dinner as recently as a few months ago.
On that night they decided they’d not speak to each other in the week of their first coaching clash when Collingwood met Carlton, with the pair set to square off against each other for the first time before a packed MCG crowd on Sunday.
McRae almost broke the pact this week by reminding Voss that he owed him dinner after he ‘shouted’ his former captain last time.
Brownlow and Norm Smith medallist Simon Black this week posted a cheeky photo of a dressed-up McRae and Voss together in New Orleans during a 2003 post-season footy trip.
Notting said both McRae and Voss were often the ringleaders when it came to off-field fun.
“Fly was really good at social gatherings, he was right up there,” Notting said.
“He was very good at organising Mad Mondays and footy trips and gathering the group together on those sorts of occasions.
“And Vossy was probably his wingman in that regard, so they were thick as thieves when it came to Mad Mondays and footy trips.
“But they were also two of the most professional players as well, but when it was time to organise something they were right up the front.”
It typifies their relationship and friendship, which has endured over two decades and is likely to endure being respective coaches of two of the biggest clubs in the land.
THE PIES CAUGHT A ‘FLY’
When searching for Collingwood’s 16th senior coach in its proud history, the club looked at both McRae and Voss, among many other candidates.
McRae and Voss had multiple formal interviews with Collingwood, which the now Magpies coach described as a three-month process.
It was reported at the time Voss’ second interview did not go as well as his first and he was overlooked by the Magpies.
McRae impressed the likes of football boss Graham Wright — who spearheaded the search for Nathan Buckley’s replacement — and football director Paul Licuria to beat Richmond assistant Adam Kingsley at the pointy end of the search.
“Collingwood did really well and put you through a pretty thorough process,” McRae said earlier this year.
“It went for three months and you had to present a number of times.
“Michael funnily enough was in the same process so he could back up how thorough it was.
“You get to a position where there is a clear process you’ve gone though and you gave great confidence that out of all the coaches in Australia that you’re seen to be the one they want.”
McRae has a school teacher background and made his mark in the coaching ranks as a development guru at Collingwood before becoming an assistant under Damien Hardwick at Richmond and then Alastair Clarkson at Hawthorn last year.
Matthews recently described McRae as the coach for the modern era, but Notting believed he’d be different behind closed doors at Collingwood to what he is publicly.
“He’d be two different people,” Notting said.
“What you see on TV would be different (to how he is internally).
“He’d be what Leigh used to say (about himself), which was hard but fair.
“And he’d be the type of coach to put your arm around you at the end and have a good chat with you, and he’d be very well organised so he’d have all his coaches doing exactly what he wants them to do.
“He’d be taking all the advice from them as well, but he’d be his own man and his own coach.
“He’s a very smart man, Fly, and he’d be right into the finer details of all the coaching.”
HOW VOSS BECAME THE BOSS
It was the Zoom job interview that blew the Carlton coaching panel away and put Michael Voss in the box seat to return to an AFL senior coaching role.
The Blues panel, charged with finding a replacement for David Teague, gathered in the IKON Park board room in late 2021 while Voss was leading his presentation from his Adelaide home.
While there was distance between the two parties, there was an almost instant alignment in ideas.
Carlton head of football Brad Lloyd revealed to the Herald Sun it was far from the standard zoom meeting as Voss pulled out all stops to put his name at the head of the queue.
“It wasn’t your standard Zoom (meeting),” Lloyd explained of Voss’ hi-tech pitch. “It was actually a very impressive and innovative way he presented in that first interview.”
“Vossy had another screen behind him and he was able to utilise the vision in an almost broadcast-style set-up. It was quite impressive and easy to follow.
“He was able to really express himself in terms of his personality and his beliefs and his game-style and he was able to go to a few creative lengths to highlight those points.
“We were quite blown away with that first presentation and we wanted to take it further.”
Carlton had flirted with the idea of a high-profile new coach with a bid to chase four-time premiership coach Alastair Clarkson and interest in former Saints and Dockers coach Ross Lyon all coming to nothing.
Voss’ past experience as Brisbane Lions coach, his growth as a senior assistant at Port Adelaide and his football IQ and track record of culture-building were massive ticks for him.
“The club wanted to go through a really strong process,” Lloyd said. “We interviewed heavily and had a look at a number of current senior coaches, current assistant coaches and coaches who had coached previously.
“We went through the process and narrowed it down to a couple of really good options. But we ended up selecting the coach who we needed for the moment for us.”
Among the characteristics that Voss had which swayed the Blues in his favour included his values, his ability to work with a team of people and his vision for the future.
“The thing that stood out was his leadership - being an all-of-club leader as well as a football coach,” Lloyd said. “He had coached before and had applied himself through his seven years at Port Adelaide. It was a values-based decision, his quality as a person really stood out.
“His experience, his work ethic, his values, the leadership he has and the leadership we required at the time were all important factors for the panel
“We wanted someone with strong emotional intelligence, but also someone with strong life experience. We liked that Michael had coached before.
“In the end, we put a huge focus on someone who could deliver the right game plan for us. We wanted someone who was going to drive standards and build relationships.”
Members of the coaching panel, including president Luke Sayers, former champion and board member Greg Williams, new chief executive Brian Cook and head of football Brad Lloyd, all had phone conversations with Voss as the process narrowed.
They also spoke to numerous football industry figures about Voss’ specific suitability to the Carlton role, given the club didn’t necessarily need a development-style coach, but a person who was ready to help take a talented young list from modest achievers to finals aspirants.
But as good as the Zoom interview was, and as promising as the process was, the Blues were never going to hire a new coach off the back of an online interview.
So they told Voss he was among the leading candidates, and asked him to come to Melbourne for further talks.
He packed his bags, unsure of when he might be allowed back into South Australia, and got to work with the coaching panel on a more personal basis when he arrived at the club.
It wasn’t long before Voss was told he had the job, getting the news from Sayers, Cook, Williams and Lloyd as they collectively set to work on putting in a coaching panel around him.
It was the final piece in the Blues’ 2022 jigsaw puzzle, given the club’s confidence in its football department staff, its list-management team and its high performance team.
Voss’ transition back to senior coaching has been made easier by the likes of Ash Hansen, Tim Clarke, Aaron Hamill, Aaron Greaves and the rest of the coaching, development and football department staff.
There is admittedly a long way to go, but Blues fans - excited by the team’s 8-2 start to the year - couldn’t be happier with what has transpired since that first Zoom hook-up
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