The former Carlton footy boss takes an in-depth look at all aspects of the Blues
Fresh from spending the last seven years at Carlton, former footy boss Brad Lloyd unpacks what’s changed at the Blues — and why there’ll always be heat on Michael Voss.
Even in the two months since I left Ikon Park, so much has changed with three senior players now gone, 10 list changes and five new faces.
Football certainly moves quickly.
And with coach Michael Voss entering the last year of his contract, it is vital the Blues – led by new CEO Graham Wright – are fully aligned on expectations for Voss as he begins 2026 with a refreshed playing list.
Carlton is a proud club full of great people and hardworking players desperate to have success.
THE TEST FOR VOSS
I have been finished at Carlton for about eight weeks and to see some of the things that unfolded that weren’t locked in before I left shows how fast things can move in football.
The departures of free agents Tom De Koning and Jack Silvagni seemed to be heading that way but for Charlie Curnow to go, at least 10 list changes and five new players to come in is a big change for the club.
Michael Voss is one of the best people I have met in footy, a wonderful leader and strong character. He gives his all to the role.
I look at the exodus of senior players from the club, in particular gun forward Charlie Curnow, and I think Michael would have been the one who had the most difficulty with losing key members of his side given there is a reasonably high level of expectation on performance in an out-of-contract year for the senior coach.
The fact the club received not only draft picks but some good senior players in the Curnow deal would have certainly helped that trade go through by giving the coaching staff the chance to tweak the team with some proven players instead of draft picks.
Carlton started the trade period saying they were clear as a club that they wanted Charlie to see through the last four years of his contract and that was an uncomfortable situation for Charlie, who was making noises he wanted to go.
In reality, it was also an uncomfortable situation for Carlton too.
To support the club and player at the time and to keep their leverage in the negotiation, clubs are always going to come out fairly strong and talk about retaining the player.
You can read between the lines in some of the language that gets used like ‘for the right deal’, that a player is movable.
I think some players would cope OK with staying at a club after pushing to get out but I think Charlie is one player that after going through that needed to leave and I think Carlton would have realised that.
List manager Nick Austin is someone I have worked closely with.
He is so invested in his role and did well to turn the Curnow situation into the picks he did. He is a good operator and very good at his craft.
Carlton has had a really high level of retention over recent years and this is really the first time the club has been challenged on that front.
You need to look case-by-case at why that has occurred in these situations.
I think the De Koning offer from St Kilda was just far too great for Tom to refuse and everyone, including Carlton supporters, are accepting it would be impossible to knock it back.
Jack obviously has a lifetime connection with the club and has had challenges with his body at different times and hadn’t been able to have a good run at it but he had an outstanding start to this year and showed what he can do as a tall back. His competitiveness and ball use out of the backline became standout attributes in his new role.
All of a sudden, he went from going a little bit year-by-year to getting some really strong prospects put in front of him and he was another who had an opportunity he couldn’t refuse.
Carlton lost some high-end players to get to this position but they are unbelievably well placed now with two high picks where they can match a bid for father-son prospect Harry Dean and are ready for potential No.1 pick Cody Walker next draft.
Carlton was able to bring in some players who will help improve the forward line in Will Hayward and Ben Ainsworth.
Campbell Chesser and Ollie Florent can cover the ground really well, while also adding some good ball use.
Best mates in Navy Blue.
— Carlton FC (@CarltonFC) October 30, 2025
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Liam Reidy was a smart pick up and someone who had been followed really closely throughout the year. With De Koning going out, he is able to come across and fill a gap.
It was good to also see Francis Evans rewarded with a contract for 2026. Francis was someone who was in and out of the side throughout the year but had an outstanding finish to the season and was rewarded with another 12 month contract.
Carlton delisted Jaxon Binns and Elijah Hollands, despite both having contracts for 2026.
It has been well reported Hollands had a difficult year off-field and it is always a tough call to let a player go early.
Hollands is a high end talent, and he has recently spoken about his challenges. He can run all day and can damage opposition teams popping up through the corridor with his ball use or within the 50m arc for a shot on goal. We all hope he can re-establish his career at AFL level.
Clubs have to negotiate a settlement with contracted players and determine if contract amounts are paid in 2025 or paid over the 2026 season.
Payments for contracted delisted players will be counted in the TPP (Total Player Payments) in the year they are paid, so another task for list management teams to work through where it fits best and negotiate with the player’s manager.
THE CARLTON HEAT
There has always been a lot of chat outside of Carlton about powerful influences impacting the team and club culture.
The board is really stable and the club has a really supportive and passionate past players group that were really good.
I think the trappings of playing for a massive club with a big supporter base, there is no doubt a frustration with the 30 years that the club hasn’t been able to win a premiership.
That frustration does boil over at times.
I think on the whole, players realise how blessed they are to be representing a big club and getting on the big stage so often.
Carlton has had a really good handle in recent years on where the influence should come from inside the club.
As a senior employee at the club, the board and the club is really supportive and does manage that very well these days. I never saw that as a challenge.
When you work in professional sport and walk into a professional environment, everyone feels really well supported so you are able to put a bit of a cocoon around club staff and players, despite the external noise.
Former president Luke Sayers did that really well and led strongly and I think the new president Rob Priestley has a really measured, calm way about him and he will be a good, successful leader and president.
Grand finals and premierships are hard to win and in hindsight, 2023 and the way Carlton was playing at the back-end of that season, it probably is one that got away.
To be up by as much as we were at quarter-time of a preliminary final in Brisbane, although we came from nowhere in that season, it does become a missed opportunity for the club. Nothing is guaranteed and the club got going again strongly for a large part of the 2024 season but then fell away.
There are many clubs in history that have taken a dip after a couple of years of finals and returned to be really successful.
Carlton in this instance have lost a few senior players which adds to that challenge.
When I think back on my tenure at the club I most often think about the great people there.
The leaders of the club have been toiling away and they have really strong calibre people in the playing group and dedicated staff across every department.
It is a club full of wonderful people that I loved my time working with and I would love to see success for them.
There are times that you need to support the senior people at the club and in particular the coach. I was always happy to front the media or the public when it was my time.
That came after a loss to Port Adelaide this year, when the external heat on the club was turned up.
I spoke to the media at Melbourne Airport after we had flown back from Adelaide, and after a disappointing loss, and it wasn’t until minutes before the press conference that I found out about my name and others being included on the Ikon Park gates with graffiti.
I have been around a fair while and it was a challenging time, but I was probably a bit more disappointed with our performance than worrying about graffiti.
This is one part of the leadership role a football GM takes on and helps support the senior coach who must do countless media interviews despite the pressure they are under.
LIST OVERVIEW
IN:Will Hayward, Ollie Florent (Sydney), Liam Reidy (Fremantle), Ben Ainsworth (Gold Coast), Campbell Chesser (West Coast)
OUT: Charlie Curnow (Sydney), Jack Silvagni, Tom De Koning (St Kilda), Corey Durdin (Port Adelaide), Sam Docherty (retired), Orazio Fantasia, Will White, Harry Lemmey, Jaxon Binns, Elijah Hollands (delisted)
LIST GAPS
Carlton pushed really hard with the Bulldogs to try and get the Buku Khamis trade done and went to the Bulldogs with multiple options but it fell over.
They have a bright future in that position with Harry O’Farrell, who unfortunately did his knee late this year, and impending father-son Harry Dean.
But they may have to look at the market to get someone to support in the key back space in the short term.
Outside run has been a position the club has been trying to fill for a number of years.
Even with recent draft picks of players like Ollie Hollands, Jaxon Binns, who was recently delisted, and Jagga Smith. The Blues brought in Blake Acres from Fremantle and Matt Cottrell has been missed, having been hit with injuries in the past two years.
LIST STRENGTHS
It was a challenging year in 2025 for Carlton. The leaders in Patrick Cripps, Jacob Weitering and Sam Walsh brought a lot of enthusiasm and resilience to the playing group.
Cripps is an optimistic leader who just keeps giving and giving.
He will continue to dig deep.
That group of players, including Harry McKay, have expected success together. They were early draft picks and thought early on that they would eventually play together in winning sides that would go deep into September.
Curnow leaving has probably been the first real dent to those ambitions but they are great leaders and will surge through this to get to where they need to.
With Charlie Curnow now at Sydney, Harry McKay will lead the forward line.
He played nine games last year and missed a chunk of the season, but I think Harry will be fine going forward.
He is one of the most professional players in the club and absolutely meticulous the way he prepares. I think people who dismissed him changed their tune when he came back in the back-end of the year and showed what he could do.
The club had a luxury to have both Harry and Charlie in the team, I think he will thrive being the main target up forward.
Sam Walsh just needs to get a bit of continuity going and the longer he can stay injury free the better. He has a huge work ethic and is so thorough in his preparation. Along with the captain would be the most highly regarded in the way he prepares himself.
Walsh would be well placed to captain the club.
There is a younger wave coming through led by Jagga Smith, Harry O’Farrell and Cooper Lord.
That group of young players will quickly become senior players and pick up and support these older players and bring a bit of a change of the depth of leadership in the club.
Smith is captaincy material.
We saw in the brief time he played at Ikon Park in a practice match his ability to move in close and his poise and I also saw some real leadership traits even when he wasn’t playing and the club was under siege late in the year.
DRAFT HAND – 9, 11, 43, 54, 67, 72
Carlton has talked a lot about flexibility. Losing the future first round pick last year as part of the Jagga Smith deal has been turned around really quickly with the Silvagni and De Koning compensation picks, and then of course the Curnow deal.
Carlton has had a really big focus on getting picks in to give them a lot of flexibility with Harry Dean coming through and Cody Walker next year, two potential father-son draftees, as well as Jack Ison, from the club academy.
Every time you look, Dean is going up the draft order. By all reports, he could go anywhere between two and six in the draft, which leaves Carlton having to use one of those early picks on him.
The flexibility of having two picks, nine and 11, gives them the option of potentially sliding one of those picks back and getting a future pick in.
They may even take the second pick and move into the future as well, which sets up the preparation for Walker for next year, who is a star.
Overall, they are well placed to get gun young players in Dean, Ison and Walker and get some young talent in before Tasmania arrives.
SALARY CAP
As a result of the departures of senior players, for the first time in a while the Blues would have some really good TPP (total player payments) room.
The club has been tight from a salary cap point of view and things can change quite quickly and Carlton would now be freed up and ready to attack the future with TPP space.
HIGH PERFORMANCE CHECK-IN
Rob Innes came out of a really strong program at Sydney and 2025 was his first year at Carlton. He is a quality character who settled into the club well.
One thing you look for when you look over the injuries are what was unlucky and what injuries you can manage.
The club was challenged with injuries again this year but a lot of them were collision-based and there were confronting injuries to the first two draft picks of last year in Jagga Smith and Harry O’Farrell.
In 2023 the club was hit by injury as well but had a perfect storm at the back end of the year where a lot of players with high-end talent who had battled injuries returned at the same time and the team went on a run in the finals.
But in 2024 the club was again hit by injuries, and a number of changes were made on a list management front to try and get more durability into the playing list.
THE COACH’S BOX
Carlton has had a significant change in the coaching ranks in particular the development area. Luke Power is one of the highest-calibre people you will meet and will be a significant loss culturally to the club, now he has moved to the Western Bulldogs.
Brad Ebert has gone into private business with Phillips Coaching and Tom Lonergan has returned to Geelong. All three are really high-calibre people who have finished up in development.
The club has brought in highly-rated coach Damian Truslove, as well as Oakleigh Chargers coach Ash Close and Richmond premiership player Jacob Townsend, with Jordan Russell now heading up development, having previously been an assistant coach.
Aaron Hamill also left Carlton, another great clubman and experienced coach who has put in wonderful service to the game.
Josh Fraser has done a really strong apprenticeship in his time at Carlton previously and more recently at Collingwood, and he comes in as a line coach, with Leigh Adams also on board.
Carlton will be looking for greater balance in their gamestyle, they were a really high scoring team in 2023 and put a great emphasis on defence last year but did struggle to move the ball with enough flow and often enough.
With some of the inclusions bringing running capacity and ball movement, they will be focusing on that ball movement.
FRONT OFFICE
Brian Cook is a wonderful AFL leader and the club was lucky to have such a special person lead the club in recent years.
He came in off the back of some great work done by Cain Liddle who is a gun when it comes to the commercial side of football. I think the combination of Liddle and Cook has left the club in a really strong position financially, facility and stability-wise.
Graham Wright comes in with a football background and after a year in the role as a deputy, he can now put his football stamp on the club whilst continuing to ensure the club thrives commercially.
Chris Davies joins the club as football GM after 11 years in the same role at Port Adelaide. He is an experienced football manager and gets his opportunity to come in to a big Melbourne-based club.
I think the alignment of president, CEO, football GM and senior coach has always been a critical piece in the leadership of the club.
With the off-season the club has had, that alignment will be really important as the club embarks on a fresh outlook moving into 2026.
Originally published as The former Carlton footy boss takes an in-depth look at all aspects of the Blues
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