Jack Reiwoldt said it.

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Everyone looks good in Navy Blue

Thanks Bondi, I thought it was him but I didn't want to state it was without verifying it.
But even though it is Jack, he still has a valid point.

It is a cycle we seem to struggle with.
The coach leaves or is sacked, the shackles and pressure comes off.
We start playing like champions with or until we get a new coach.
We then look like we can make a go of it and the accountability comes back into the game plan.
Then players start playing like s#$t again because of the pressure and having defined roles.
Rinse and repeat.

And to make it worse the senior players are the drivers and pass it onto the kids.
Rinse and repeat.

Should probably take into account we've played 2 pretty poor teams. Or in last night's case, extremely poor

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#DonTheStash

yeah, next week will be a better test. still, under voss. the last what? 40 games. played plenty of shit teams and didnt get it done. crawled into our shells and lost leads.

we are playing differently. we dont press up the field manically and guard space when we have the ball forward of centre. we are more opponent focussed. also the amount of times we use overlap when we mark it in our back half. there's not just one runner, there's two or three coming in a wave from behind our guy who's marked the ball.

this simply didnt happen under voss, bcos players were instructed to never stray away from their defensive space when we had the ball in our back 50. even with the ball, the focus was on defending. Fraser has changed all of that.

if you recall, this was the same way we played in 2023. but under voss, it wasnt by design, it was due to injury. we played more run and dash, and chaotic, with much less regard to defensive assignment when we had the ball.

in that 2023 run, we had players running, and hitting targets. the list was never the problem. the instructions were.



voss was a stress head. and stress is contagious. it was being passed thru the group, and it stemmed from voss. he's not a good coach. he's too stubborn, and some - well many - say arrogant.

and those two attributes get you killed in the business he was in.


i wish we parted with him at the end of 2024 season, bcos the writing was on the wall - we were sinking and voss was losing players with his style. a season and a half wasted all bcos carlton were worried about how it looked sacking yet another coach.

People are still defending Voss the head coach?

It was obvious for way too long he wasn’t the guy. He had ample opportunity to evolve and prove himself but he, put simply, failed. We NEVER had any base level consistency under his tenure. Never. Either wildly good or putridly bad. Roller coaster the whole time.

If the club made the move, rightly imho, at the end of last year our season would be more the last 2 weeks and not the first 9.

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We are on our way back...

some in here, are more terminally stubborn than voss, it seems.


anyway. voss was an epic failure and is gone. now lets build this shitshow into something we are all proud of, again.

People in here are still defending the players?

It was obvious for way too long that our players are mentally soft and unable to execute under pressure, they fall apart. Some reckon that changing the coach will fix the problem, yet we’ve changed coaches every 3 years for the last 25 years with no success. I guess they believe in the theory that if you have an infinite number of monkeys using typewriters eventually one will produce a Shakespeare quality play? Others reckon that Voss’s game plan was fundamentally flawed and that we’ve miraculously fixed it with a few small tweaks, not realising that that proves the fundamental game plan was sound. Yet others point to the way we’re playing, that we now play fluent, modern football for all four quarters instead of falling apart in the second half, or realising that this means we were playing the right way all year, just not all game. Others will point at how we reverted to the “bad Voss” plan in the third quarter on Saturday night as if we hadn’t been doing that all year. Others will say Fraser has “taken the pressure off the players and allowed them to perform the (Voss) game plan as they were meant to, which proves the Voss 2026 game plan was pretty sound.

Face it guys, the players are mentally weak and the playing culture has been weak ever since we recruited Mick Martyn.

I’m not defending Voss, he obviously couldn’t resolve the playing lists mental issues, but if you’re expecting a miracle just because we sacked yet another coach you’re delusional.

1. Voss has been in charge for 5 years. Fact!
2. The game changed in the last 2 years and he didn’t adapt. Fact!
3. 2 weeks into Voss’s exit, we are finally playing the game plan he wanted and was trying to implement since preseason?
4. All our top 10 picks in the last 30 years have been all weak minded?

The only point I agree with is our culture. Seriously pathetic and not one coach or football manager has been able to fix it. Of course tanking for higher draft picks assist in building a successful mentality………

I’m sure some might even enjoy this weeks loss or any further loses, if happen.

I think its a bit of both at fault. It seems that way from the evidence we have.

Lets not suggest the players were not mentally weak. Hopefully, we can all agree to that. Just look back at posts.

I feel the players know they also had a hand in Vossy's sacking, and had a good hard look at themselves. It happens. Guilt is a great motivator.

When was the last time Carlton took so much care with their set shots and kicked 8 goals straight?

Shocking misses infront of goal from our KPFs Curnow and Harry since 2024 were demoralising. Curnow left, but that inaccuracy with set shots from our forwards continued; see Kemp. Moving on Fog didn't fix it. The pressure was between their ears.

Can't hide the fact that Fraser and the players have suggested its the same plan but with a few exceptions/ tweaks and players say they felt 'freedom ' from the built up pressure from losing...those bloody little voices in their heads got the better of them. It happens to humans.

Coach and players all say the Game Plan was fundamentally the same, but that doesn't mean it was ever going to lead to success under Voss. Something subtle must have changed with the plan. Enough to bring change and momentum. Maybe the change was something Vossy was too stubborn to change? Maybe something that needed a minor tweak and worth a try was tried?

Most people I spoke to after the Bulldogs game, said the game plan looked the same, and Fraser added, the change was a 4 quarter effort; that's on the players. The win was against a team cruelled by injury. Fraser said there was minor change made, but like braithy said, we've failed against weaker teams since mid 2024; he might be right to think Vossy didn't adapt or couldn't motivate or wouldn't do something to ensure we won the winnable, and that was on Vossy. His players let him down, and vice versa.

The game against Port was different. I felt Fraser did change something to the existing game plan; perhaps put the cherry on top. We ran in numbers from defense. Opponents were marked and we stopped corralling, and minding space. Vossy's game plan, minding space, was taxing imo. I'm only guessing. Smarter people believe that. Vossy's ultra hard forward press left us vulnerable with Weiters as the last line of defense around the centre square. Good luck to Weiters closing down a speed demon...see StKilda game in the 2nd half. He had no support. Weiters was left vulnerable.

Something has changed. The penny has dropped. Who knows? Exactly? But there's no doubt the players have proven themselves to be mentally weak, and have been since Bolton took on SOS's list, and boys of 'good character'. Jack Reiwoldt covered this well on the weekend. Good luck to the coach getting inside the heads of these mentally weak players.

One thing obvious to me was Pitto played longer and broke even with Sweet. I'd say he beat Sweet with 10 v 7 HO to advantage. Harry has able to keep the pressure on in the ruck, but we didnt have anyone in the forward line to mark the ball when harry wasn't there. I don't know why we kept on bombing it forward in that 3rd. Is that Fraser's fault? A personnel thing? Players' fatiguing and losing composure? Forward not providing leads to kick to? Says to me its a bit of everything.

IMO, the best thing about the win was our dare (to run in 2's and 3's), our close checking of opponents and pressure we were able to exert that, over 4 quarters (maybe because we weren't spent chasing tails because we were minding space instead of players) and most importantly, we did it with 11 players not available (see impact that has on our VFL team), 6 missing from our Best 23. 7 if you count Carroll. It was a great to win on their dung.

The big test is this week vs Cats. Cats are at the top of the tree, the best side in the Comp, playing with 4 rucks , with only Stengle missing but he's been replaced by a better small forwards, Close and Jack Martin.

I'm not expecting a win, but I am hopeful we will give a better showing than the Swans and Lions did, learn from our 3rd quarter, add another layer, and that will suffice that this lot are better coached under Fraser, and the players have woken from their slumber.

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Everyone looks good in Navy Blue