IF THERE was one image that summed up the emotions of the Carlton Football Club during the mid-season malaise, it was Sam Walsh on the full-time siren back in Round 13.

The ball was bound for the Carlton co-vice captain when the siren blared at the MCG, confining the Blues to a sixth straight defeat — and one to the arch enemy no less.

The frustration got the better of the uber-competitive Walsh, spiking the incoming Sherrin as he, his team and his club wondered where the next win was coming from.

As fate would have it, it’d be the next week, where a nine-goal second quarter against Gold Coast set in motion one of the great turnarounds in Carlton’s history.

“Footy can change quickly,” Walsh, speaking to Carlton Media, says with a smile.

“The tough thing was we felt like we were working really hard at our game. The support of the coaches and staff couldn’t have been any better, we just weren’t getting the rewards for those people and ourselves.

“When we got to that stage of the Essendon game, I was just angry after the loss. If you ask me how I lose in FIFA and how I react, it’s like that — but with a controller.

“There was a lot spoken about the fans when we went off, but the following week, having a strong quarter against Gold Coast and getting clapped for what you want to be seen like, that gives you confidence.”

The 2023 tribulations for Walsh weren’t just what the team was going through. Individually, few have enjoyed a start to footballing life as profound as Carlton’s No.18.

But for the first time since 2019, from a solo perspective at least, it seemed like this was the first time where things weren’t going his way. He missed the infamous final game against Collingwood in 2022 with a back injury, setting the tone for surgery in the pre-season which wiped out his first month.

He took a little bit to get going, but just when he was back doing what he does best, a hamstring strain against West Coast ruled him out for another month. 

He sums it up: “it was definitely a challenging year”.

“There were challenges individually and as a team. At the time it’s hard, but you learn the most about yourself and what we want to be about in that period. To come out of the other end, you’ve got to put in a lot of work and I feel like we did that.

“The back’s going well — anyone who’s had back stuff will know that it’s a 12-24-month management thing. I feel like my body is only going to keep building from here: I’ve learned a lot of valuable lessons about how to look after my body and how I can get to the point of performing each game.”

And perform he did in the month of September.

‘Built for finals’ is a term that gets thrown around a lot, and Walsh lived that description to a t in the first three finals of his career, culminating in winning the Gary Ayres Award.

There’s a much bigger, team-oriented prize that Walsh will always focus on, particularly given his earliest memories about the sport start in football’s final month.

“You grow up as a kid and you want to be playing finals and in Grand Finals, which we didn’t quite reach this year,” he said.

“I’m well-complemented by our other mids, so I’m able to play my game. You don’t get those looks without a lot of people helping you.

“Individually, it was being able to know that I’ve put in the work and trained at a high intensity. The thing I found with finals is the games are always at a high intensity: being able to value that helped me step up in those moments.

“Hopefully I can carry that into the off-season, set up a good foundation and go again.”