Carlton will mix things up in the final few games to find some positives for 2026

Another loss continued Carlton’s miserable season so coach Michael Voss has flagged some things to keep him and his players interested for the rest of the season.

Carlton coach Michael Voss says he is willing to experiment with both subtle and obvious changes across the final month of the season as he looks to salvage something from a lacklustre 2025 campaign.

The Blues were unable to capture a fairytale win for retiring champion Sam Docherty on Thursday night, going down to Hawthorn by four goals after being jumped by the Hawks early and not recovering.

Voss said Carlton was unable to trial any major changes on a short turnaround this week but is confident there will be evident adjustments across the last four rounds in a bid to find some positives from 2025 and prepare for 2026.

“We’re trying a bit of that with the forwards, that’s probably why we went a bit taller, trying a few different things,” he said.

MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA - JULY 24: Michael Voss, Senior Coach of the Blues looks on during the 2025 AFL Round 20 match between the Hawthorn Hawks and the Carlton Blues at the Melbourne Cricket Ground on July 24, 2025 in Melbourne, Australia. (Photo by Michael Willson/AFL Photos via Getty Images)

“We’ll definitely put that on show the next couple of weeks, there might be a couple of things you look at and go, ‘Well that’s a bit more obvious’.

“Then there will be some subtle other things that we try – this week is a bit harder, we had five days (between games) so you don’t train.

“Having some training sessions, go to work on a couple of things and see how they impact might give us some important information.”

Carlton was never in the game after conceding the first four goals of the game and six to one before quarter time.

The Blues managed to wrestle the margin back but Voss says his team’s inability to apply scoreboard pressure meant they were never truly threatening.

“It was a mixture of everything,” Voss said of the slow start.

“There was some back-centre turnover, some maybe lack of attention to detail at contest, there was an end-to-end goal, it was a bit of everything.

: Jacob Weitering of the Blues is chaired off the ground following his 200th game and Sam Docherty following his final game (Photo by Robert Cianflone/Getty Images) *** BESTPIX ***

“There wasn’t really a trend to the way it was happening, we held with five-six minutes to go in the quarter and they were able to kick those last two.

“That just got the margin a bit too far and the game was then in a bit of a stalemate … it never felt like we were threatening, we just couldn’t get that one-two goals to put any pressure on the match.”

The Blues have Fremantle, Gold Coast, Port Adelaide and Essendon on the run home.

Originally published as Carlton will mix things up in the final few games to find some positives for 2026