Carlton coach David Teague’s job under severe pressure after 95-point drubbing to Port Adelaide
The mood isn’t good at Ikon Park as a host of high profile staff fear for their jobs in the aftermath of the review findings.
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Carlton is bracing for a period of bloodletting with key figures fearing for their jobs as Ross Lyon declares his interest in making a return to the coaches’ box next season.
Coach David Teague is far from alone in the crosshairs of the club’s frustrated board, with his assistants, high performance boss Andrew Russell, football boss Brad Lloyd as well as the club’s list management team all understood to be feeling anxious at what has become a dispirited workplace at Ikon Park.
Words of wisdom from AFL legend Leigh Matthews recently helped Lyon realise his passion for coaching still burned, and the spectre of Lyon’s defensive DNA will loom large for the Blues, who conceded 19 consecutive goals to Port Adelaide on Saturday.
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Departing Hawthorn coach Alastair Clarkson would be the other obvious target should Teague be moved on.
The pandemic and Clarkson’s son Matt’s year 12 enrolment have dampened the chances of him spending 12 months abroad working for a global sport.
The Blues’ executive has made fixing the floundering football program its No. 1 priority and is in a position to negotiate necessary payouts.
Chief executive Cain Liddle built Carlton into the AFL’s most profitable club in 2020, while its revenue ($50.2m) ranked second to premier Richmond.
The cashed-up Blues are desperate to attract the best people even if it means blowing next year’s football department spending soft cap and paying the AFL’s hefty luxury tax.
Teague, 40, has challenged the board to emulate the courage shown by Richmond in 2016 when it backed in Damien Hardwick, and Teague doubled-down after the 95-point loss by declaring he was “absolutely” the right man for the job.
But the expectation is that Teague’s contract for 2022 will be torn up once the board fully digests the findings from the external report, which were tabled last Thursday night.
Highly-rated development coach Luke Power is expected to stay, having only joined the Blues in 2020.
But long-time assistant John Barker departed mid-year and the futures of Cameron Bruce (forwards), Dale Amos (defence), and Brent Stanton (midfield) are unclear.
National recruiter Mick Agresta and veteran talent-spotter Paul Brodie are also understood to be on shaky ground.
Like Power, list boss Nick Austin has only been at the club for 18 months and so his fingerprints are only on last year’s trade and draft period and contracts signed in 2020-21, which should help him escape the widespread scrutiny.
Matthews recently ran into Lyon, telling the three-time grand final coach that he was too young to walk away from the caper and had to coach again.
“I felt there was some respect there from Leigh,” Lyon, 54, told Triple M on Sunday.
“AFL coaching is a passion. I never found it tortuous or a job and it does stimulate you thinking that you’ve got something to offer and if an opportunity presented maybe you look.
“To put a team around you and commit to something and try to build something special is a wonderful feeling.”
Lyon is close mates and business partners with Carlton great Stephen Silvagni, whose relationship with the club and Liddle remains strained after he did not have his contract as list manager renewed in 2019.
While some have suggested Lyon’s loyalty to Silvagni would preclude him from coaching Carlton, others think he could help the kids who were drafted by Silvagni show they are capable footballers.
It is unclear whether Lyon and Lloyd would work together again after their time at Fremantle.
Lyon and Brodie have long been close allies.
The spirit at Carlton has well and truly been broken as players, coaches and staff prepare for another emotional week.
The Blues will start rank outsiders against a Greater Western Sydney line-up playing for a finals berth as 350-gamer Eddie Betts finishes his legendary career at an empty Marvel Stadium one week after Marc Murphy’s bitter farewell at the Adelaide Oval capitulation.
ALONE IN A PLASTIC CHAIR, WHERE TO FOR TEAGUE?
David Teague looked like the loneliest man in the city of churches as he sat on the interchange bench at Adelaide Oval without a prayer watching Port Adelaide’s run of consecutive goals pile up to 19.
The under-siege Carlton coach then isolated himself in the changerooms, sitting on a plastic chair and poring over Champion Data’s statistics from what he later described as his worst loss.
Surely the 40-year-old also wondered whether he had just one week left in the seat.
It was an emotional week for the Blues as co-captain Sam Docherty was diagnosed with testicular cancer for the second time, ongoing racism in the AFL devastated Eddie Betts, club great Marc Murphy retired and findings from the external review were tabled to the board.
Teague admitted last week that commissioning the review mid-season had rendered Ikon Park a psychologically unsafe workplace and with the results final it appears to have detonated any remaining sense of hope for 2021.
Teague conceded the “timing is not great” for his chances of seeing out his contract in 2022, adding the intense speculation on his future only added to the challenge.
“I thought we turned up to play, we had a crack early, we just weren’t able to maintain it,” he said.
The Blues led Port Adelaide by 23 points and lost by 95. Alarmingly, supporters fans have been desensitised to fade-outs.
They have also squandered leads of 27 points (Western Bulldogs) and 13 points (Brisbane Lions) this year.
The defensive system installed last pre-season was not properly equipped to stem the bleeding.
Port slammed on 6.3 from 13 inside 50s in the last 20 minutes of the second term, despite the Blues throwing an extra number behind the ball.
Teague does not expect the board to relay the review findings until after next week’s match against Greater Western Sydney, but said he was “absolutely” still the right man to coach next season.
Backing Teague in would emulate the bold decisions made by Richmond in 2016 (Damien Hardwick) and Collingwood in 2017 (Nathan Buckley).
But in reality it appears unless the board pulls the trigger this week, the match against the Giants will be Teague’s 50th and final game in charge.
He is unlikely to be the only casualty from the review of the entire football department as the Blues get set to spectate an eighth consecutive finals series.
The positives pointed out by Teague post-match only further franked some of the concerns over the club’s team selection this year.
Teague was rapt with Corey Durdin’s forward pressure, Josh Honey’s scoreboard impact and Zac Fisher’s midfield minutes before Port’s bigger bodies took over, as well as unveiling key defender Brodie Kemp.
He said the deepening bunch of 22-26-year-old Blues should fuel supporter excitement.
“I think we’re getting some games into guys,” he said.
“You look at whose driving us at the moment and in terms of throughout this year with Harry (McKay), Jacob (Weitering) and Sam Walsh.
“You add a Josh Honey or Corey Durdin and it just keeps growing.”
But Durdin and Kemp were playing their first AFL game, lifting Carlton’s tally of debutants to just three for the season.
Honey was playing his fourth game for 2021 and Lochie O’Brien his fifth for 2020-2021.
Instead of blooding kids early, Teague backed in 34-year-olds Marc Murphy (15 games) and Eddie Betts (18 games) this year, as well as wingman Jack Newnes (18 games) over O’Brien, albeit with some of their games as the substitute.
With cooked shoulders Murphy was playing his 300th and final game, and the 95-point embarrassment was a bitter end Teague said he did not deserve.
Murphy’s parents Jon and Judy, wife Jessie and son Max were then barred from the rooms post-match for his celebration.
“An air of real disappointment they’d let a great player of our footy club have his last game in that manner,” Teague said.
Patrick Cripps completed some run through on the cricket nets before he was a late withdrawal although is set to return against the Giants.
Carlton and Hawthorn started Saturday with unlikely missions against top-four clubs and premiership fancies Port Adelaide and Western Bulldogs.
Coaching great Alastair Clarkson’s Hawks stunned the Dogs one week after beating fifth-placed Brisbane Lions, and Clarkson will be officially on the market next week.
Meanwhile the Teague Train – which left the station with a rush of momentum in 2019 – derailed to the point where it surely fell off the tracks.
TEAGUE HANGING BY THREAD AFTER BLUES HORROR SHOW
Speculation about Teague’s position reached fever pitch in the week leading into Saturday’s clash at Adelaide Oval and the pressure on his tenure will intensify after his side conceded 19 unanswered goals to slump to its biggest loss of a disappointing season.
“It doesn’t help, I understand that, but in terms of a pattern of behaviour that’s our first really big loss,” Teague said.
“The timing is not great, but in terms of where we’ve been and the way that the guys approached it at the start … I thought we cracked in.
“It may not help, but I think it was one game.
“Over the year we’ve been pretty competitive but we’ve got some growing to do.
“That’s where we’re at, at the moment.
“It’s disappointing, we’re shattered, but the thing that hurts most is that you never want to lose like that when you wear the Carlton football jumper.
“When it’s Marc Murphy’s 300th … to do that for Marc Murphy’s 300th it hurts more.
“I know the guys are trying but for whatever reason once (Port) got a bit of run on we went into our shells and we weren’t as aggressive.”
The Blues led by 23 points in the second quarter, but their resistance crumbled in the face of the Power’s resurgence, with the visitors kept goalless in the second half.
Teague conceded it had been an emotional week for his group that has dealt with the news of Sam Docherty’s cancer diagnosis and Eddie Betts’ response to the Taylor Walker racism furore on top of the speculation about his job.
“You’d have to ask each individual but it does make it challenging, the constant talk, but that’s the industry we’re in,” he said.
“We’ve got to find a way to continue.
“I thought we turned up to play, we had a crack early, but we just weren’t able to maintain it.”
Teague said the prevailing mood in the changeroom was one of disappointment from Murphy’s teammates at having sent off a club great with such a poor performance.
Teague could understand the pain Carlton fans would be experiencing following the loss, but is steadfast in his belief that better times are coming.
“We understand that was quite painful to watch, particularly at the end,” he said.
“(But) there’s some young guys coming through that I think are going to play some really good football and take this club back to where it needs to be.
“I thought there were some signs there.
“We need to continue to grow and help them improve.
“If I were a fan I’d be looking for some small glimpses there to hang onto.
“I think we’ve got a good group. We’ve got some guys that are hitting that age between 22 and 26, but we’ve got to work hard.
“I’m confident we’re going in the right direction and I think it can happen.
“I think we’ve got the people, attitude and culture to do that.”
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Originally published as Carlton coach David Teague’s job under severe pressure after 95-point drubbing to Port Adelaide
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