Goodbye premiership hope: The Blues will need to face more pain as they look to a long term plan
While Collingwood’s post-game party further rubbed salt into Carlton’s wounds, a reality check set in. A long term plan with every name is on the table, with more pain on the cards for 2026.
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Perhaps the ultimate insult to how dreary Carlton’s season has become was how much joy their arch rivals enjoyed in sweeping them away on Friday night.
Where Blues players came out of a team meeting post-match to another glum changerooms, the Pies party packed into their rooms at the MCG, almost overflowing with friends and family.
There have been very few smiles for Blues in recent weeks, but it was all grins for the Pies.
Having enjoyed maybe the best outing of his young career so far, Lachie Sullivan could only described the night as “fun when we play like that”.
It is less a fun atmosphere and more funeral for the Blues.
This Carlton season has been kaput for weeks and now the eye internally, and externally, has well and truly turned to 2026.
Some Blues fans felt like Bill Murray banging that radio in Groundhog Day on Friday, as Carlton players butchered their way to a 56-point loss to Collingwood.
The seven weeks still remaining must look daunting for Blue baggers everywhere, as the club now steps into research mode for the future.
Trading speculation will only rise alongside speculation about the coach.
Hawthorn great Jordan Lewis declared all of the superstars should be on the market to get ahead of a looming slide down the ladder.
The Blues have spent more time rebuilding this century than the Victorian government and a tear down would drag the club back to rubble.
Those dreaming up Harry McKay trades got a good look at what life would look like at Carlton without the 2021 Coleman medallist against the Pies.
McKay watched from the stands as Charlie Curnow tried his guts out up forward, but when he would win a contest on the wing he would look forward and have the likes of Ashton Moir, Francis Evans, Orazio Fantasia and Jesse Motlop to kick to.
That’s hardly a roll call of dangerous forwards, and Jamie Elliott took as many marks inside-50 on Friday as all of those players combined, with seven.
If the Blues were to ship McKay, it is extremely unlikely they would get a marking forward in return.
If any of the draft picks that come back are equal to McKay, that would be a great return, and it would take years for such a player to develop.
A trade like that may open up some cap space but as Blues assistant Aaron Hamill told SEN pre-game about McKay and Curnow, “teams are crying out for these type of guys and we are lucky to have them”.
Carlton has battled to kick a winning score – the Blues have only kicked more than 12 goals three times this year, two easy wins over West Coast and North Melbourne and a victory over Geelong.
The continuous effort to retool the forward line and bring in ground level players to complement Curnow and McKay has continuously failed, and there are few easy fixes on the market, even with McKay’s money to spend if he was traded.
It is the tightrope the Blues are staring at.
Making big trades of star players may build for the future, but that would mean going further back on a premiership clock that is currently already in reverse.
It’s clear that Tom De Koning is no answer for the McKay-shaped hole up forward.
De Koning looked at best lost and at worst disinterested when playing forward against the Pies.
He took one mark inside-50 – when he seemed so surprised to be hit on the chest by Zac Williams in the third term that he missed a resulting rudimentary set shot from 25m out – and rarely presented an option.
Despite having both De Koning and Marc Pittonet in the team, the Blues failed to have a forward target beyond Curnow for much of the night.
It took until the final quarter when Mitch McGovern was finally handed a white towel from the Jamie Elliott match up and sent to attack to find at least another big body to kick to.
The De Koning-Pittonet pairing has been attempted several times in the past and Pittonet said the duo would get better each time they played together this year.
“This is only the second game this year we have played together,” he said.
“In the past we have done it well, and still getting that flow where we can benefit.
“Each week we play together we will complement (each other) more and more and see the benefits off the back of that.”
But clearly, the pairing takes an All-Australian calibre ruck in De Koning out of the ruck, and at least judging by his body language on Friday night, it’s not a road he is keen to go down.
Every week and every loss seems to take us closer to De Koning cleaning out his locker at Ikon Park.
Even as St Kilda actually sits lower on the ladder than the Blues, at least it doesn’t deal with the never ending fall out of its losses.
There is no misspelt aggressive graffiti on the walls at Moorabbin.
We all know the Blues have plenty of decisions to make about a bloated list of players on the fringe, who haven’t quite filled the roles they had hoped.
If they want to dip into the trade waters with big stars, they have to accept it’s most likely the big deals would make the team worse in 2026.
If incoming boss Graham Wright and what is left of the senior core can stomach that, then a longer-term view may be in order.
But that could shut the door on what was supposed to be a premiership window around Patrick Cripps, Curnow, McKay and Jacob Weitering.
“If that’s the case that we can’t make it (to finals), then we would be kidding ourselves if we said what we do in the next seven weeks doesn’t flow on to next year,” Pittonet said.
THE COLLAPSING DEFENCE
The Blues can’t score enough to win, and now their defence can’t stop enough either.
Collingwood’s precision with the ball was spectacular on Friday but Carlton’s defensive effort folded like the Australian Test order against the new ball.
Voss held an airing of grievances post-match.
“The most concerning parts were the missed tackles, the aerial contest we lost, we didn’t defend behind the ball, when the ball was turned over we weren’t sharp enough in our reactions, and they kicked whatever it was 70 points in transition,” he said.
“We have had a year where we have been able to defend behind the ball really, really well and that is how much pressure we get on the ball that is giving our backs the opportunity to defend the ball but we just couldn’t collectively get that done today.
“There were too many breakdowns.
“You can handle the disappointment if there’s breakdowns in offence, you can handle that disappointment.”
The Blues were stoic in the back half early in the season but have conceded 30 scoring shots in a game two weeks running.
There was no defensive response to the mauling in Port Adelaide, as Collingwood laced through the Blues defence time and time again.
And it would have been worse had the Pies not pumped the brakes in the final term.
As Voss said, failing to score is one thing, but being ripped apart defensively is when losses get ugly and jobs are lost.
THE POWER PIES
As bad as Carlton was again on Friday, the premiership favourite Collingwood machine was as good.
“Some of their efficiency by hand and foot, you can see why they are such a good team at the moment,” Pittonet marvelled.
“Once they get it out, they give each other time and space to get those kicks and they were just so much more efficient than we were.”
Collingwood’s style was infectious.
“It is fun when we play like that … tonight was fun,” Sullivan said.
Where the Blues have chopped and changed with desperation up forward, the Pies just plough on.
“We are starting to get a lot of games together and there is a different mix that comes in and we have a really good chemistry,” Sullivan said.
“Our forwards are a really tight knit group and anyone who comes in, you just have to play your role.”
It’s the same at the other end, as Collingwood’s defence continues to tighten up.
Darcy Moore enjoyed possibly the best outing of another excellent season against Carlton, Brayden Maynard returned with his usual punch and Josh Daicos’ rebound remains stellar.
Craig McRae’s team can brutalise opposition attacks and no team has conceded less than Collingwood’s 67.8 points per game this year.
That is almost a goal better than the Pies’ 2023 premiership season (73.3 in the home-and-away season), and you have to go back to the drop kick days of 1966 (59.6) to find a better Collingwood defence, outside of the shortened quarters of 2020.
Where Carlton is losing its defensive identity, Collingwood is building an all-time one.
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