By Angus Delaney, Sam McClure and Peter Ryan
In today’s AFL Briefing, your wrap of footy news:
- Former Magpie and Brisbane Lions midfielder Shane O’Bree will return to Collingwood as their new recruiting manager.
- Carlton spearhead Charlie Curnow remains an outside chance to face Richmond in the round one clash with Richmond, after turning heads in a full training session on Thursday.
- Michael Voss has detailed his experience of being smuggled into Ikon Park in the boot of a car before his appointment as Carlton coach in 2021.
Pies appoint O’Bree as recruiting manager
Peter Ryan
Former Magpie and Brisbane Lions midfielder Shane O’Bree will return to Collingwood as their new recruiting manager.
Two competition sources who weren’t authorised to speak publicly confirmed O’Bree had won the Magpies job.
The 45-year-old has been working in list management at the Cats alongside master recruiter Stephen Wells after stints at the club as an assistant and VFL coach.
O’Bree is also planning to coach the St Joseph’s Geelong school football team in 2025.
He played 227 games for Collingwood and 19 matches for the Lions; Magpies coach Craig McRae and list manager Justin Leppitsch are former teammates from his time in Brisbane.
Shane O’Bree and Scott Burns celebrate Burns’ last quarter goal.Credit: John Donegan
O’Bree also played a large part of his career with the Magpies’ head of development Josh Fraser.
Collingwood have been on the hunt for a new recruiting manager after Adam Shepard decided to instead join West Coast’s recruiting department rather than take up the position, as this masthead revealed in January.
McRae famously said at the end of last season he preferred acquiring players to picks. The Magpies have traded their future first-round picks in the past two seasons for Dan Houston and Lachie Schultz.
Collingwood’s recruiting has undergone a massive overhaul since Leppitsch took on his role. Derek Hine, who drafted two premiership lists, departed before Christmas.
The football department is very different to the one that took the club to the 2023 premiership, Charlie Gardiner recently appointed as football manager after the departure of Graham Wright to Carlton.
Blues gun turns heads at training
Sam McClure
Carlton spearhead Charlie Curnow remains an outside chance to face Richmond in next week’s round one clash with Richmond, after turning heads in a full training session behind closed doors at Princes Park on Thursday.
The Coleman medallist, who has struggled with knee and ankle problems since the latter stages of last season, trained fully and moved extremely well, bombing goals from 60 metres off just a few steps.
Whether he’s selected to play against Richmond remains to be seen. To risk him off a limited preseason against Adem Yze’s Tiger cubs would represent a significant risk, especially for the player seen as the key to Carlton’s elusive 17th premiership.
Carlton coach Michael Voss and key forward Charlie Curnow.Credit: Getty Images
“So yeah, we’ll wait and give him every single chance,” Voss said on Nova radio before training. “So I’d still say that he’s more unlikely than likely and more ready to go for round two. But yeah, we haven’t made that call yet.
“Who knows, he comes out today and trains really well over the next couple of days, then he could be right to go.”
Curnow’s teammate Sam Walsh is seen as a near-certain starter against the Tigers. Walsh, too, moved well at training on Thursday and has fully recovered from a hamstring strain he sustained in mid-January.
Mitch McGovern, who limped off the field with an ankle injury in the preseason win over Greater Western Sydney last week, has been declared a certain starter after scans revealed no structural damage.
McGovern was in severe pain after landing awkwardly in a marking contest but had fully recovered by the time he flew home with his teammates the following day.
He trained strongly and will play against Richmond.
How Blues smuggled Voss into Ikon Park
Angus Delaney
Football can be a secretive business. But Carlton coach Michael Voss experienced the extremes of cloak-and-dagger club behaviour when he was smuggled into Ikon Park in the boot of a car before his appointment in 2021.
Voss was a contender for the Blues’ senior coaching role – a title that had frequently changed hands around that time – when he felt the scrutiny of the media as he arrived in Melbourne for an interview.
Michael Voss was smuggled into an interview for the coaching job. Credit: AFL Photos via Getty Images
He told radio station Nova about Carlton’s unusual request, made in the hopes of keeping their meeting a secret.
“When I first arrived into the airport, with the media, obviously they find out that you’re coming in … and then as I jumped into the car, obviously [I] had the media chasing me to find out where the interview was going to be,” Voss told Nova on Thursday morning.
“Then on the day, [football manager] Brad Lloyd has said, ‘Look it’s Carlton, and you’re quite new here, and there will be people out front. Mate, like, I’ve got a really unusual request – can you jump in the back of the boot?’”
Voss obliged. The Lions great and three-time premiership captain recalled banging his head as Lloyd drove over speed bumps.
“So I was not prepared … Brad’s gone over the first bump [and] I’ve hit my head on the top. I think I’ve half knocked myself out with concussion,” he joked.
“So I can’t remember [if] I got the job or not. I just turned up on Tuesday thinking I had it.”
Voss previously spent time as an assistant coach at Port Adelaide and as the Brisbane Lions’ senior coach. He won the coveted Carlton job ahead of Adam Kingsley, the current GWS coach.
That may have been the first time the Brownlow medallist was involved in a quirky story involving a vehicle, but it wasn’t the last.
Voss made headlines last year when he sensationally apprehended an alleged car thief in Hawthorn, holding the 16-year-old down until police arrived.
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