‘I don’t get it’: Awkward mystery over missing Carlton key forward

The footy world is all asking the same question with Carlton reaching crisis point and one of the club’s biggest stars is nowhere to be seen.

The rumblings behind Harry McKay’s unexplained disappearance are growing louder with Carlton reaching crisis point.

Blues coach Michael Voss is under the pump and the club is sitting 0-4 in a nightmare start to the season with fans desperate for answers.

Among many issues the club is facing is the situation surrounding McKay’s decision to step away for personal reasons, announced on March 27.

Coach Michael Voss flatly refused to answer a question about McKay in the post-match press conference following his team’s 17-point loss to Collingwood on Thursday, saying: “I’m not going to get in a weekly dialogue on it”.

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The key forward played in the Blues’ Round 1 loss to Richmond before being a late withdrawal from their Round 2 loss to Hawthorn with the club listing “illness” as the reason behind the late withdrawal.

The club announced before the team’s Round 3 loss to the Bulldogs that he was taking leave for personal reasons.

The situation took a twist over the weekend with McKay playing in a reserves VFL match against Southport.

Harry McKay booted 49 goals in 2024. Photo by Robert Cianflone/Getty Images.

McKay’s strange return to football left footy commentators, including Collingwood great Tony Shaw, asking the big question.

Shaw said Charlie Curnow would benefit the most from McKay’s return.

“I don’t get it,” Shaw said on 3AW on Sunday.

“If you’re running around in the reserves, is it his comfort zone? Is it the only thing he can cope with at the moment? Maybe that’s [where he’s at]. But I just don’t understand.

“You’re paying this bloke $1 million-per-year and he’s playing in the VFL. You’ (Carlton) are playing Collingwood.”

He went on to say: “There has to be more, but they’re not going to come out with it, so we’re going to ask the question, it’s going to be lagging on for a long time,” Shaw said.

“But to me, he is in the top five players in that side when he is up and going by a mile. He has got to play.

“He could be a decoy. At the moment, Charlie Curnow is going head to head with three defenders at a time and he’s the one bloke they keep kicking the ball to.

“They need him”.

McKay’s absence was also a hot topic on Channel 9’s Footy Classified on Monday night.

“I can totally relate to the protection that Michael Voss and others of Carlton have given Harry McKay,” footy journalist Damian Barrett said.

“But it’s OK to have a football conversation around it because he’s returned to football in the VFL and the question is not going to go away.

“And I think there’s been a pretty sizeable respect from the outside world and the media given to the situation and I think it’s only right that the question does continue to get asked now that he is back playing football.”

Essendon great Matthew Lloyd also highlighted how significant McKay’s return would be for Curnow in the forward line.

“Have we ever seen it before where a player can play VFL but he doesn’t feel capable of playing AFL football,” Lloyd asked on Channel 9.

“So that’s where it’s a really difficult one. And I can only imagine how they’re feeling, you know, being very respectful internally.

“But it would be frustrating to the fact that he can bring himself to play VFL football but not AFL football.

Harry McKay is back training with teammates. Photo by Morgan Hancock/Getty Images.

“And I want to show this vision because they must be pulling their hair out going, imagine we had Harry because Charlie isn’t having to do this.”

Voss said after the Collingwood loss he knew the clock was ticking on the club’s ability to salvage their disastrous 2025 season.

With the game, and perhaps even their season, on the line, the Blues gave up a half-time lead for the fourth time in as many games this year, and were blown away by the Magpies who consigned Carlton to its first 0-4 start since 2019.

Voss conceded he was concerned about the standard of footy the Blues were displaying, and suggested that honest conversations with his players will get even more “pointed” this week, as he acknowledges that “the urgency is real” regarding his team’s finals hopes.

“Ultimately the third quarter was unacceptable,” Voss said.

“The game is played at contest first and we absolutely were disappointing in that area.

“They were tougher around the ball. The fact is when the pressure comes, we’re not handling it.

“We’ll look at that pretty closely. It won’t be missed, I can tell you that.

“That’s not us. We’ve got a standard that we play to, and we didn’t meet that tonight.

“So we have to own that, so that puts a target on your back, but we have to step into that.”

Carlton midfielder Sam Walsh on Monday defended his embattled coach.

“We’re all behind Vossy, he’s been a great support for all of us, we’ve been through a lot of things together,” he said.

“I feel like he assesses and sees the game really well and gives us a clear path forward, now it’s up to us to keep on taking that accountability.

“At the end of the day, we’re the ones out there, it’s not the coaches.”

— with NewsWire