By Jake Niall
Michael Voss might not have pursued a car thief and scaled a fence in Hawthorn to apprehend a young vagabond back in late August had the Carlton coach known that the teenager was armed with what was described as “quite a large knife”.
Voss’ chase – an event that prompted a mix of humour and awe – isn’t the only time in the past 15 or so months that the proverbial knives have been in the vicinity of the tough ex-Lion king, who was pilloried by sections of the Carlton faithful in those terrible months of May and June last year, when the Blues were sinking fast.
Michael Voss at Carlton’s training session at the Gabba on Friday.Credit: Getty Images
But, for the first time in a long time, the Carlton hierarchy stayed resolute and stood by their man. It was the view of president Luke Sayers and chief executive Brian Cook that Voss must be backed and endorsed as coach for 2024, regardless of the ladder and what was amiss.
To do otherwise – to allow even a small measure of wriggle room, such as suggesting that they might review Voss’ position at season’s end – might well have triggered the football version of a run on a bank at a club where coaches had been discarded, on average, within three seasons, in the decade preceding Voss. Certainly, this was how Cook and Sayers saw it.
Sayers, in fact, had made a pledge to Voss when the ex-Lions triple-premiership skipper and coach was appointed late in 2021, according to club sources with a knowledge of the confidential discussions (and who wouldn’t go on record). Sayers told Voss, words to the effect, that “if you go, I’ll go with you”.
The Sayers’ pledge won’t be necessary for Voss, though. Carlton have contracted Voss for a further two years, 2025 and 2026, which means he will outlast both CEO Cook and almost certainly president Sayers, whose term expires at the end of 2025 (having already extended his term limits via a vote of members). Cook is slated to finish up at the end of 2025.
Michael Voss with his players after their win against West Coast in round 23.Credit: AFL Photos
Whereas Carlton swiftly lost faith in Brett Ratten, Mick Malthouse, Brendon Bolton and David Teague, the Blues have seemingly settled on Voss and, while this season could end at the Gabba on Saturday – which would be a disappointing outcome for a team that shaped as potential grand finalists in June – the Blues know that it is injuries, more than anything, that caused the late-season slump.
Voss will meet his old club, the Brisbane Lions, for the second time in a final, having been dispatched in the preliminary final last year. Voss, remarkably, has been involved in all six previous finals between these clubs (counting the Brisbane Bears) – as a player in 1995 and 1996, skipper in 1999 and 2000, as Lions’ coach in 2009 and then as Carlton coach last year.
Carlton’s appointment of Voss followed the ex-Lion coach’s patient eight-year stint as assistant coach at Port Adelaide, where he retooled and learnt the nuances of coaching that he hadn’t known when appointed, prematurely, by the Lions board in late 2008 following Leigh Matthews’ decision to step down.
Carlton have a vastly more experienced and sagacious coach than the one who foundered on the rocks of his inexperience at the Lions – and poor decisions by the club in recruiting, particularly the signing of over-talented and strife-prone Brendan Fevola in 2009 – and was sacked mid-season in 2013.
At Carlton, Voss has brought an understanding of his own – and others’ – limitations. To educate himself at Port required humility, and it was this quality that Voss modelled for players and staff. At Cook’s behest, Carlton have adopted “humility” – hardly part of the club’s strutting DNA – as an official value, extolling Voss as the standard-bearer for that virtue.
“He’s big on that [humility] as well,” said Luke Power, who has the distinction of having known “Vossy” as teammate, as his player (2009-10) at Brisbane and then as his VFL coach at Carlton.
Power said that as Lions coach, Voss “wanted to tell everyone what he knew”. At Carlton, he coached with the recognition that players absorbed information in different ways and at different rates, and had adjusted accordingly. “He’s learned not everyone is on that level.”
Power says Voss is a relationships coach, but one who commands the group. “The guy has got huge presence in front of the group.″
In his days coaching the Lions, the ex-champion did not delegate as effectively, as Lion people from that time have acknowledged; one could contend that his biggest blunder was taking the job with zero experience, when West Coast had offered him an assistant’s job.
And that he didn’t have the level of support around him as at Carlton.
Luke Power says Voss is a relationships coach, but one who commands the group.Credit: Getty Images
At Carlton, Voss is supported by a CEO who has seen it all in Cook, by senior assistant Ash Hansen – who offers tactical acumen – and by football boss Brad Lloyd and his seasoned assistants, including Tom Lonergan (ex-Geelong), Aaron Hamill (backs), Tim Clarke (midfield), Jordan Russell (forwards), Power (VFL/head of development) and Brad Ebert (development).
Voss took the further step of engaging a mentor from outside the club and – in what has remained largely unknown outside a small group at Carlton – he has been coached by three-club CEO (Richmond, Melbourne, Fremantle) Cameron Schwab since late 2022, Schwab having taken up a role advising corporates and other leaders and who offers Voss a regular sounding board.
In his first season, Voss regularly conversed with his candid old Brisbane coach and former Carlton premiership coach and great Robert Walls, who had been keen to see him installed at the Blues.
If Voss has changed his methods, his methods also have changed Carlton.
An AFL executive, who recently saw Voss deal with Laura Kane and detail some coaching issues (and not authorised to have his name on record), reckoned that one of Voss’ traits was decidedly un-Carlton-like; that he eschewed club politics altogether. “There’s only one game for Vossy,” said the official.
Power added: “He’s not a political guy.”
A coach who learnt humility, perhaps, found a club that was – finally – humble.
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