Who will be Carlton’s next scapegoat after latest Blues debacle?

Carlton’s season is slipping away after another fadeout – and the stats are damning. So, SCOTT GULLAN asks, where will the blowtorch turn now?

Who’s going to be the next scapegoat? That’s the question facing Carlton as it watches the 2025 season slip away quickly.

Fitness boss Andrew Russell was sacrificed after last year’s disappointment, copping it in the neck for the Blues injury woes and ordinary fade-out at the end of the season.

He must be sitting back wondering, like everyone else, how he was the only one to have the finger pointed at him given what Carlton has served up in the opening four rounds.

The season is slipping away for Carlton. Picture: Getty Images

Right now they’re 100/1 to play finals which means the blowtorch will start searching for a place to land.

Should the season be gone by the end of May — apart from West Coast and North Melbourne in the next couple of weeks the draw isn’t easy — it’s only logical for Michael Voss to come under serious scrutiny.

What’s acceptable by the bye? Is four wins and seven losses the marker? Surely 2-9, which isn’t out of the question, doesn’t pass muster.

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These are all hypotheticals but that’s the business we’re in and if the Carlton board aren’t doing their own numbers then they’re not doing their job.

They won’t need to be reminded that the Blues have now lost 11 of their past 13 matches - the only two wins coming against bottom sides West Coast and North. That’s ugly in anyone’s language.

And here is another fun fact: The last time Carlton started 0-4 was back in 2019. Seven games later then coach Brendon Bolton was sacked.

The sack-Voss-now push is a cliche but he looks devoid of answers at the moment and his team is playing like one who has no idea where to look to find those answers.

It’s no wonder the former Brisbane champion took his players straight in behind closed doors after the match for an old-fashioned strong heart-to-heart.

He’d just watched an all-too familiar tale against Collingwood. Start the game with energy, look to play on at all costs, forward handballing at every opportunity and looking for the corridor.

Then as the excitement starts to fade, generally at the start of the third quarter, the skill errors begin to appear and before they know it, the game is gone.

Collingwood kicked three goals to half-time and then four in the third quarter while the Blues managed just one point.

GOING MAD

Doing the same thing over and over again and getting the same result is the definition of insanity.

Carlton’s third quarter fade-outs have become their trademark this season. All week it had been talked about but knowing all about it and not repeating it are two very different things.

The Blues looked completely different in the third quarter. The dash and dare was gone, replaced by slow down-the-line ball movement which Collingwood just eats for breakfast.

After this debacle the stat now has Carlton minus 80 points in third quarters this season compared to their opponents — they’ve kicked 5.10 (40) to 18.12 (120). They have led at half-time in all four games.

The discrepancy on the stats sheet was alarming for the Blues.

At half-time compared to Collingwood they were +52 disposals, +30 kicks, +22 handballs, +11 contested possessions, +44 uncontested possessions and +23 marks.

All of that says they were controlling the ball, moving it freely and really probably should have been further ahead than four points at the main break.

Fast forward 30 minutes and the three-quarter time stat sheet had a dramatically different look with the margins of ascendancy drastically reduced. For the third quarter the Blues were -35 disposals, -22 kicks, -13 handballs, -10 contested possessions, -30 uncontested possessions and -14 marks.

That screams Collingwood owned the football and did as they pleased while Carlton were a completely different outfit.

Lachie Schultz kicks his second

Normally such a pattern of fade-outs would indicate fitness concerns but wingman Blake Acres says that isn’t the issue.

“I can’t put a finger on it at the moment to be honest but we have got a very fit group, this is the fittest group I have been a part of so it’s definitely not our fitness,” Acres said.

“We will look at it during the week and learn from it again.

“We know our best is good enough and we just have to somehow figure out to keep playing our way for longer. Footy is not a half or three quarters, it’s four quarters so we just have to be able to put that together.”

Carlton’s third quarter fade-outs have become their trademark this season. Picture: Getty Images

Vice-captain Jacob Weitering questioned the team’s mental toughness while Voss said the way the Blues were beaten around the ball in the third quarter — captain Patrick Cripps only had one possession in the first 14 minutes — was “not us”.

“We have a standard that we play to and we didn’t meet that tonight,” Voss said.

“Coming into halftime (we were) all pretty clear on what we needed to be able to get done. Certainly the way we played the first half gave us encouragement to suggest that we could continue.

“There were certainly no signs to suggest that that was going to drop off. But, ultimately, the third quarter was unacceptable.”

BEEN THERE, DONE THAT

The one thing Carlton players were clinging to after the game was the fact they’ve stared down having their season shot early doors before and managed to find a way back.

In 2023, which was Voss’ second year as coach, they jumped out of the blocks with three wins and a draw in the first month before then losing their way with a six-match losing streak in the middle of the season.

They then won 9 of their last 10 games to make the finals where they ultimately pushed Brisbane all the way in a preliminary final epic at the Gabba.

Then last year they won five-in-a-row again in the middle patch of the season to put themselves in the finals mix.

“I know we are not far off, as a group we have done this before, we have been in this situation and I am very confident we are going to turn the season around,” Acres said.

“I think we can flip it around and I think we are closer than what people are saying.

“We know momentum is a crazy thing in footy, we are finding that at the moment where sort of momentum swings in games has probably beaten us a bit.

“But momentum throughout the whole season, we know what ‘23 looked like and we had a patch in ‘24. We would be hoping to replicate that again and I know once this group gets on a roll it’s going to be hard to stop.”

That’s good in theory and Voss will hope he’s right because otherwise the Carlton scapegoat theory will again take over the spotlight.

Originally published as Who will be Carlton’s next scapegoat after latest Blues debacle?