Blues players expected their coach to tear strips off them. What followed stunned them

The night Carlton chose Michael Voss over Charlie Curnow may ultimately be remembered as the moment the club sealed both men’s futures.

One stayed. One walked.

And by the time the Carlton board finally emerged from Ikon Park deep into the night on August 6, 2025, the club had unknowingly accelerated the end of the Voss era.

For weeks, Carlton had been consumed by uncertainty. The season was deteriorating, the pressure around Voss had become relentless and rumours were spreading through the competition that Curnow — the club’s biggest star and a dual Coleman medallist — was miserable.

Not just frustrated. Miserable.

Those close to Curnow say the champion forward had fallen out of love with football amid the turbulence of Carlton’s season. Injuries had worn him down physically, but internally, there was a growing belief the emotional disconnect ran deeper than form or fitness.

The relationship between player and club had become strained.

The relationship between player and coach had become complicated.

And yet, despite all of it, many across the football industry still believed Curnow would stay at Carlton if the club made the difficult decision to part ways with Voss.

That was the prevailing view among rival clubs monitoring the situation. It was the belief held by figures close to Curnow. And within sections of Carlton, there was an assumption that removing Voss would effectively reset the club’s emotional temperature.

Instead, Carlton doubled down.

Chief executive Graham Wright – brought to Ikon Park to stabilise the football department and make hard-headed decisions – recommended to the board that Voss remain senior coach into 2026.

The board unanimously backed him.

What followed was one of the most extraordinary public statements of Carlton’s modern era.

“We want to make it absolutely clear that Michael Voss is the coach of the Carlton Football Club, and he will remain the coach of the Carlton Football Club,” president Rob Priestley declared at the time.

There was an unmistakable tone of defiance running through the release, as though Carlton weren’t merely backing their coach but fighting a war against the noise surrounding him. The statement referenced “calm, rational and fully informed decisions”, praised Voss’ leadership “in the face of incredible pressure” and repeatedly emphasised alignment between Wright and the coach.

To some, internally, it sounded less like confidence and more like justification.

The line that resonated most heavily across the industry came earlier in the statement.

“Last night, Graham presented a recommendation to the board of directors that Michael remains as our senior coach into next season,” Priestley said.

In effect, Carlton had put their chips in the middle of the table.

The club was choosing stability. Choosing Voss. And Curnow noticed.

Within days, the atmosphere around the superstar forward shifted dramatically. Sydney, which had quietly monitored the situation for months, sensed vulnerability. So, too, did rivals who had initially believed Curnow would never leave Carlton.

Suddenly, the possibility became real.

Privately, some at Carlton were stunned by how quickly things escalated after the board meeting. Others weren’t surprised at all.

There had been warning signs throughout the year: Curnow’s body language, his frustration, the growing sense he was no longer enjoying coming to work.

When he eventually sought a trade to Sydney, the move sent shockwaves through the competition.

Not simply because Carlton were losing a generational key forward, but because of what the decision represented.

Carlton had chosen to believe Michael Voss could still lead the club forward.

Charlie Curnow had decided he couldn’t go with him.

The Hewett axing

George Hewett sat in the coaches’ room at Ikon Park searching for an explanation that never really came.

The reigning best-and-fairest winner – a player who had become the embodiment of Carlton’s blue-collar competitiveness under Voss – had just been dropped after the club’s humiliating round-five loss to North Melbourne. Not rested. Not “managed”. Dropped.

To this day, those close to Hewett insist he was never properly told why.

The decision would become one of the defining moments of Voss’ final season at Carlton. Not because dropping a player is unusual. Coaches do it every week. But because of what it represented: confusion, fractured communication and a football department increasingly making emotional decisions instead of clear-headed ones.

Hewett had finished 2025 as Carlton’s best-and-fairest winner. He was durable, selfless and fiercely respected internally. Teammates viewed him as one of the club’s spiritual leaders; the type of player whose standards rarely fluctuated regardless of the scoreboard.

This made the axing jarring.

After the North Melbourne loss on Good Friday (a last-quarter capitulation), the pressure ramped up on Voss. Scrutiny was building around selection, game style and whether the coach still had the full buy-in of the group.

Then came the call on Hewett.

Players privately questioned it immediately. Some were stunned. Others simply couldn’t reconcile how the club’s reigning best-and-fairest winner had become the fall guy for a systemic failure. Hewett, himself, was blindsided.

Sources familiar with the situation, not willing to be quoted on private conversations, said the midfielder repeatedly sought clarity around the decision but never received a definitive football explanation. There was no detailed road map for him to return. No strong messaging around deficiencies in his game. No obvious tactical reasoning, although it’s generally accepted that the Blues could only accommodate two of Hewett, Patrick Cripps and Adam Cerra in their midfield.

What followed only deepened the confusion.

Hewett returned to the VFL and dominated almost immediately. Week after week he amassed possessions, won clearances, tackled ferociously and performed exactly as senior coaches demand experienced AFL players should at state-league level. Internally, teammates wondered what more he was supposed to do.

The longer he stayed out, the more symbolic the omission became.

It increasingly felt less like a football call, and more like a desperate statement from a coach trying to regain control of a season slipping through his fingers. Carlton had entered the year believing they were genuine premiership contenders. Instead, the club was spiralling.

And in the middle of it sat Hewett – loyal, durable and increasingly perplexed.

The irony, in the end, was brutal.

After spending a month starring in the VFL, Hewett was recalled for what would ultimately become Voss’ final game as Carlton coach against the Brisbane Lions. The same player who had seemingly been made an example of was recalled when the damage had already been done.

Within the club, the handling of Hewett lingered as one of several moments that quietly eroded faith in the direction of the football program. Not the biggest crisis of the Voss era. But perhaps one of the clearest examples of how disconnected Carlton became from its own instincts.

The club dropped one of its most trusted soldiers searching for answers.

It never really found them.

The spray that didn’t come

If the Hewett omission was symbolic of Carlton’s confusion, the round 15 collapse against North Melbourne last year was the moment many inside the club realised something far deeper was wrong.

Not because Carlton lost, but because of how they responded.

North were struggling. Young, inconsistent and sitting on the lower rungs of the ladder, they were precisely the type of opponent a serious finals contender should swat aside. Carlton entered the game believing they would stabilise a wobbling season.

Instead, they unravelled spectacularly.

Across the second and third quarters, North kicked 12 goals to Carlton’s three and effectively ran the Blues off the park. The contest became chaotic, embarrassing and psychologically damaging. Carlton looked slow defensively, disorganised behind the ball and incapable of stopping momentum once the game turned.

Players left the ground expecting the fallout to be severe. Several senior figures privately believed the performance demanded the harshest internal review of the Voss era. Standards had cratered. Effort and accountability were being questioned externally. And perhaps most concerning of all, players no longer appeared clear on what Carlton’s identity actually was.

By the time they arrived for the Monday review, many were genuinely nervous.

Some feared a full-scale spray.

Others anticipated a brutal line-by-line dissection of effort, defensive running and structural failures. One player later described the mood walking into Ikon Park as “petrified”. Players were preparing to be held accountable.

Instead, what they got stunned them.

Voss largely showed vision of the things Carlton had done well.

There were clips highlighting positive ball movement. Moments where the team had executed system correctly. Passages that reinforced effort, shape and method. The underlying messaging was familiar to players who had spent years under Voss: remain positive, don’t overreact, focus on growth, reinforce belief.

Typical Voss. Glass half-full.

But this time, it landed differently.

Players walked out of the meeting confused.

Some were expecting fury and instead got reassurance. Others interpreted the review as a coach either unwilling or unable to confront the severity of what was unfolding. Carlton had just been obliterated by the rebuilding Kangaroos, yet internally the messaging felt strangely optimistic.

For a playing group craving clarity and edge, it created unease.

Why weren’t they being sprayed? Why did it feel like the review was trying to project confidence rather than demand accountability?

Those questions lingered. To Voss’ supporters, his approach reflected emotional intelligence. He had long believed players responded better to empowerment than humiliation. Publicly and privately, he resisted theatrics and rarely coached through fear. He wanted players playing freely, not anxiously.

But critics increasingly felt the approach had become predictable – and worse, ineffective.

The North Melbourne loss crystallised a growing concern that Carlton’s internal temperature no longer matched external reality. The season was slipping. Standards were eroding. Yet the messaging remained oddly calm.

Carlton won only four more games under Voss.

Within the club, many would later look back on the North Melbourne collapse – and particularly the review that followed – as the beginning of the end.

Not because one meeting cost Voss his job. But because it exposed the widening disconnect between the coach’s messaging, and what parts of the playing group believed the moment required.

Keep up to date with the best AFL coverage in the country. Sign up for the Real Footy newsletter.