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Commitment, desire and buy-in of Carlton’s senior players questioned
Andrew Slevison • April 4th, 2025 9:38 am
The commitment, desire and buy-in of Carlton’s senior players has been questioned in the wake of Thursday night’s 17-point loss to Collingwood at the MCG.
The Blues again led at half-time before succumbing in the second half, slumping to a fourth straight defeat in season 2025.
SEN Breakfast’s David King challenged the senior playing group - a few key Blues aside - to show complete and utter competitiveness on every occasion.
“There’s not much a coach can do when you haven’t got that absolute 100 per cent buy-in from the group,” King said on Fireball.
“Last night there were three or four occasions where Carlton players chose not to commit their bodies for the cause.
“That, for whatever reason, permeates through the group and its some of the senior core players.”
Co-host Kane Cornes said: “Let’s name them - (Sam) Docherty was one again, (Zac) Williams was the other again.”
King continued: “They’re the minimum standards that when you put the jumper on is part of the package.
“It’s not just what you do with the footy and how you win the ball, you have to put your body on the line.
“When you get a bit older you can manage your way around that a bit better and you can avoid contact, you can avoid those bumps. Docherty’s haven’t been missed the last couple of weeks, that’s two in three weeks now.”
Cornes said he asked Channel 7 broadcast colleague Luke Hodge about the selflessness and sacrifices required to achieve success.
He believes there are too few of the Blues who put in unconditionally while the others are selective with the way they attack the contest.
“There are some that you can’t avoid, you just have to go. You worry about where he (Docherty) is at in his career,” he said.
“Sitting next to ‘Hodgey’ last night and I said, ‘How do you address issues like that?’. He said, ‘Well, if you’re not prepared to do it you will just not have success’.
“It’s a player-driven thing where good sides don’t even question that. Everyone is willing to sacrifice something for the greater good of the team.
“Successful teams do it. (Patrick) Cripps unconditionally does it, (Sam) Walsh to be fair unconditionally sacrifices his body, (Jacob) Weitering is probably the same.
“But there’s too many Carlton players right now that aren’t prepared to do that and it’s standing out badly.”
King is expecting that Voss will swing the axe at the selection table this week to send a message to the playing group ahead of the must-win meeting with West Coast in Adelaide.
“I’m not questioning everything at Carlton, but when you play like this I think you’ve got to turn the page on a few,” said King.
“There has to be a scalp or two at selection because you need to shake this group.
“Vossy last night was different to Vossy last week. Last week he said, ‘There’s some positives there, we see this, we see that coming along, we can see our way through this’
“Last night it was, ‘Hey, we didn’t meet the Carlton standards’. That’s a bad one.”
The Blues now have a gigantic task ahead after a winless start to the campaign. Only seven teams in the history of the game have recovered from a 0-4 beginning to play finals.
