SAM WALSH spoke to the media today after announcing that he had committed to a four-year contract extension, seeing him in Navy Blue until at least the end of 2026.
Walsh said the decision was a 'no-brainer' and was happy to solidify his long-term future at Carlton.
Here's what he had to say.
On re-signing:
"It’s obviously a pretty exciting time for me and the family and the Club and I’m really stoked to be able to commit. I’ve been loving it ever since I got to the Club: this is where I wanted to be and hopefully I can continue with some success.
"Since I’ve got to this club, I’ve made some great relationships and I feel like we’ve grown and come together as a group and obviously we have to go out and show that. I just feel like this club is a great place for me to be and I’m really happy to be on board.
"I was never going to put a time period on it but my thinking was ‘I want to commit to this club, they’ve done a lot to help me and I want to return the favour.” I’m here with a great group at the moment and I’m really enjoying it so it was a bit of a no-brainer."
On his goals for 2022:
"That’s the beauty of football - you’re always looking to work on something. I want to keep taking my contested game to another level — you look at all the mids that impact, that’s where it sort of starts.
"I think we’re developing a strong midfield group at the moment that can work together so that’s another focus, to build the chemistry as a team and work on things together. I feel like if you’re able to do that, you can stand up in games and really earn the respect of the opposition.
On the stability of the Club:
"I think even from a list perspective, this is the least it’s changed in my time so the ability to keep on working with the same players and know their strengths and what they want to work on and how we want to work together.
"On top of that, new coaches have brought in a different dynamic this year and we felt like we’re able to gel together really nicely. Their thoughts on the game have been appreciated by us and we’re really attacking it.
"I feel like as a group at the moment, we’ve been trying to gel well together and if you see the amount of numbers out on the track, you need a healthy list to compete and we’ve got that."
On looking ahead:
"With pre-season, our focus has been on a couple of week blocks and I think when you start looking too far ahead, you start to lose sight on what you need to work on from day to day.
"We’ve got the beauty of having three big sessions in a week so if you start to look too far ahead of that, you probably aren’t getting out what you want to.
"I think for us, we’re really taking the mindset that we want to earn the right to turn up to training and compete and work hard and from there, hit the ground running for the season.”
