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Important SN update for SouthlandPhil Davis: The 7-point blueprint to save Carlton
Connor Scanlon • June 25th, 2025 5:56 pm
With the Blues getting a new CEO at the end of the year, Giants great Phil Davis has laid out a 7-point blueprint to rescue Carlton.
Speaking on SEN’s Whateley, Davis revealed everything that incoming CEO Graham Wright must tackle if Carlton ever wants to climb back to premiership contention.
The 7 points which Davis laid out were:
1 – Governance of the club
2 – Effectiveness of the football department
3 – The coaching group
4 – Senior coach assessment
5 – The game plan
6 – The list
7 – The culture
1 – Governance of the club
Davis started by explaining the very first thing that he would do if he were the Carlton CEO would be to start at the peak of the club, assessing the board and executives.
“I wanna really have a clear understanding, from the very top down – what are the priorities of the Carlton Football Club?” asked Davis.
“Who weighs in on these decisions, and how much weight do they have?
“And how do they formulate, and what are the layers that are required to reach a decision? Who has the final say on big-ticket items?
“I wanna know why and where they put resourcing. I want to understand where they see the club going, and where they position it.
“To me, the underlying piece of it is, who makes decisions and why?
"And what are we prioritising? I want to find that out very clearly, to have a clear understanding, and be able to assess the decision makers at a high level.”
Gerard Whateley chimed in questioning whether Davis wanted to also assess outside influences on the board, referencing key figures from Carlton’s past.
“Yeah, I want to know exactly who the decision-makers are,” Davis responded.
“In that situation, you’ve just explained then… That would come up in the review, and be like ‘Yep, these are the key decision makers per se, however, they’re heavily influenced by XYZ.’
“I wanna know that because that is fundamentally important to understand what’s actually shaping decisions. This is true for all clubs and sporting organisations.
“Are there multiple people making decisions, and who are those multiple people?
“Or who are the multiple people influencing decisions because you want to be crystal clear, because then from there you can unpack priorities.”
Whateley also noted how Carlton and Essendon have historically been massively influenced by outsiders, a point which Davis further extended on.
“And this is the piece you wanna unpack, and you want to be crystal clear on,” Davis continued.
“Because if you’re looking at in a sense that you think you know who the decision-makers are… Then that gives you potentially a different answer than if there’s outside noise impacting that.
“So, you want to be crystal clear about who’s making the decisions, and also the information available.
“Because when you take on outside council, you’ve got to be careful they have all the information.
“They can add a perspective, but the final decision maker, you have to make sure they’re making it in totality, and prioritising the right things for the football club.”
2 – Effectiveness of the football department
The former Giant continued by explaining that an assessment of the entire football department is the next required step.
“First of all I want to have a really clear understanding of the organisation structure – who reports into who, who flows into what, to make sure that there’s some clear synergies,” Davis revealed.
“I then want to be really clear on the capability gaps – I’m interested in the analysts, I’m interested in the strength and conditioning department, (and the) medical (department).
“After I’ve done all that… How do they all interact with each other, where are their friction points, and where are they not talking?
“Because at a high level, you look at Carlton, (and) you go, ‘Okay, they’ve had a lot of injuries, they’ve played a lot of players, they seem not to be as fit as other teams, what’s going on here? Why is Sam Walsh physically looking how he is? Where is the separation between medical and football decisions?’
“So, I want to make sure I’m looking at all those aspects, and deep down I’m fundamentally judging the general manager of football to see if he can run a good program.”
Davis went on to reveal that the general manager of a football club, has become arguably the most important role.
“I think it’s become bigger… The responsibilities are wider, most clubs now have the AFLW program reporting to the general manager as well,” revealed Davis.
"That role is so significant and so wide. If you think about it, everything falls under that bucket – performance, recruiting, medical, it’s so broad.
“The thing that I have noticed, and this is a fascinating dynamic in football clubs – who is the most important person in the football department?
“Theoretically it’s the GM… But is it the coach? How does that dynamic work?
“That’s a really important relationship to understand… Theoretically, the coach should report to the general manager of football, and that dynamic is really important.
“I would be double-clicking very closely on that one.”
3 – The coaching group
Davis continued by admitting that not just the senior coach, but the full coaching department from top to bottom is crucial to an AFL club’s success.
“First of all, individually, what are their skill sets like? And how (experienced) are they to the modern game?” Davis questioned.
“Then also aside by that, how open are they to innovation (and) new things? The game’s changing, and the playing groups changing at a rapid pace.
“There’s a whole new way to teach this new generation. Are your coaches A – equipped to that, or B – open to being equipped and growing?
“Is there enough manpower or womanpower to really address and give the touch points that you need to every single player on your list?
“Do they culturally fit what we want? Are they the beacon of what we want? Are they hard-working? Are they disciplined? Are they doing what they say they’re gonna do? And do they have the trust of players?
“Do players really believe what they’re saying? Do they see that you are doing the work? Do they see that what you’re saying is actually occurring around the competition? Are they seeing results?
“I want to really deep down that.
“So, at a very broad level, A – Individual capability, B – Do we have the quantity that we want? C – Do they work together well? D – Do the players trust them?”
4 – Senior coach assessment
Davis admitted that this is the step where most people would start, as the coach is the one who brings his vision to life for the club.
“Obviously, this is the one that people will start here,” Davis said.
“Fundamentally, what is their vision for the football club? Because they set the vision, they and the GM set the vision.
“Are they adaptable? Are they willing to be flexible, and change as the game changes?
“Because we’ve seen game plans and what works change through the season, like can they catch up, can they do it?
“I wanna know, do we see growth in them? Do we think that they’ve got the skillset that if they adapt to new innovation, new strategy, et cetera, can they go with that?
“Because then underpinning that, do the players listen? Do they trust? And do they fundamentally buy into the message?
“Because if the messaging is wrong because maybe they moved too late, can the coach A – get ahead of it? And then B – the players listen.
“Because if that’s the answer, you don’t need to actually change the coach, because you’ve just gotta change the message – which then comes back to coaching group, and also the coach to be like ‘We need to get ahead of this, where is the game going, what’s it doing.’
“That’s basically how I think about the coach.
Davis continued by explaining how sometimes you don't always need to sack your coach, even if they are underperforming.
“You can miss the mark, you can choose a game plan at the start of the year, and the game can change… It doesn’t mean the coach is no good," Davis revealed.
“It means when they chose a path, it didn’t line up correctly, can A – they change and find the new path? And then B – can they get people on board?
“If the horse has bolted, players don’t trust you, and they don’t believe in your messaging, well it doesn’t matter if you get your messaging right, it’s just not gonna come through.
“While on the other side of the coin, if the players are still buying in and want it (the coach can succeed).”
5 – The game plan
Davis admitted that the current Carlton game plan is failing, and they need a new one urgently.
“I would say within reason, we can categorically say in the last 18 months, it isn’t in line with what all the best teams are doing,” said Davis.
“They don’t play with a pace, they’re a stoppage, contested ball-orientated side, and that hasn’t seemed to marry up.
“But, you then have to analyse well maybe this will work. Maybe somehow, we tinker with this and it will work, and therefore it’s not suitable today, but it might be suitable tomorrow.
“I think we’ve all got to view that maybe that’s not the case, and the game plan needs some adjustment.
“It just reminds me of the Giants in 2020 and 2021, we hung onto our contested ball game style for too long… The game went past us, it moved to this faster approach, and we weren’t equipped for that.”
6 – The list
The former Giant continued from his previous point, revealing that the list is closely related to the game plan, and Carlton may need a new list structure entirely.
“If the game plan needs to change, well is the list then built for that new game plan and where it’s going?” Davis questioned.
“I think we know the answer to that question, it’s a pretty high level.”
“But, then there’s this other bit, you’ve got to have a strategy, what is your strategy at a high level?
“Are we a talent-first list-building club, where we go huge spread between our highest paid and our lowest paid, and really go thin in the middle?
“Or are we a team that goes, ‘Oh, we’ll have 4 or 5 stars, pay huge in the middle, and then top up at the bottom’?”
However, Davis admitted that Carlton is doing something completely different.
“I think we can see from Carlton’s approach… It’s called the dumbbell approach – thick at one end, thin in the middle, and thick at the other end. And they’ve got to have a really strong discussion around if that’s the right approach,” Davis said.
“They’ve got so many stars, and there’s no issue with their star power, but you have to know that the opportunity cost of doing that, is you’re gonna be thin through the middle.
“Because you’re gonna have to top up with $120,000 players, and lots of them, because that’s the maths that you’ve done.
“So, they need to have a look at that.
“I look at Richmond in their glory years, they probably only had 6 players, 5 players, that were earning really big money. They had a very big, thick middle group, and they had some cheaper players.
“So, 2 very different approaches.”
Davis added by explaining that the leadership of the list is equally as important as the structure of it.
“One more thing on the list – it’s leadership,” Davis revealed.
“Do we have A – the on-field leadership required, and B – the off-field leadership?
“And do we have to go out and get some more? Or are we okay? Or do we have to train (leaders)?
“You look at them sometimes, and you hear some stories, and you go, ‘maybe they need to develop a bit more leadership.’”
7 – The culture
The former Giants star also announced that Carlton is a club that has openly had cultural issues in the past and are still experiencing them today.
“This is a club (that) openly came out and said that the salary cap was still causing them issues 15 years later, 20 years later,” said Davis.
“That means that there’s something that’s stayed within the club that’s causing these issues.
“And it’s caused some form of behaviour that has repeated and cycled, to still be an issue today.
“You then go back to the decisions to get Mick Malthouse, like why did you do that?
“If you go back to my first point, what was the governance decision to do that? And what was our prioritisation?
“If you think about more recently, they had that nice build, 2023 was pretty magical, and then it fell in a heap and they haven’t got it back.
“But, the reason why it hasn’t succeeded is that just because of XYZ, or is it underneath? That underneath pit is the culture, and you wanna find out why.”
Whateley mentioned how the current Carlton CEO Brian Cook called for more humility at Carlton, to which Davis replied:
“It will be interesting to unpack that with Brian, to understand whether he’s talking about behind closed doors, is it after games with the rooms, is it the fans, what is he actually talking about?” Davis questioned.
“I think they would love the passion of the fans, but it’s whether that permeates the walls, and impacts decision-making, is when it becomes a big challenge.
“What a part of any review would have to do in this circumstance is ask lots of questions, very open-ended questions, and try to disarm the people to get the truth.
“Because everyone can talk about how great the culture is, and all these things, but you need to disarm them.
“And then you need to observe because culture is very observable, and it depends on your patience level to how long you can just watch, and take it all in, and see the things that actually matter, and see the things that are unsaid as well.
“That’s part of the challenge. That will take some time.
“With this handover of Graham Wright, he’s probably best off being hands-off for as long as he can, because it gives you an opportunity to just watch (and) take it all in.
If Graham Wright can methodically work through Davis’s extensive 7-point plan, Carlton could finally see some success, and chart a clear path back to the top.
