WITH attention now turning towards the Blues' first home game of 2024, Senior Coach Michael Voss shared his thoughts about Opening Round, Sam Docherty's injury and returning to the 'G for Round 1.

Speaking at the Great Southern Bank partnership announcement on Monday morning at the MCG, Voss had the following to say:

On Sam Docherty's injury and resilience: 

I'm gutted for him. It certainly levelled me out pretty quick. He’s going to be missed. 

Sam’s not looking for any sympathy at all. He’ll get on with it and be a real pro about his rehab.

He’s been a real important person to us and it won’t feel the same without him being there with us.

He’s a pro, he’ll definitely turn that around and get his mind fixated on how he returns.

He’s an incredibly resilient person, we know that. There will be no more invested person than Sam in where we’re going as a team. He’ll throw everything at it.

On team selection: 

There are a few different options.

We haven’t sat down as a match committee and gone through all those particular options at this point in time. What we’re lucky to have is that the guys who are emerging are in pretty good form.

They get an opportunity then they’ll step into the role that we’re asking them to play.

We appreciate it becomes the next-man in and someone else is going to have to come in and get the job done.

Through someone’s clear disappointment, we’re hoping that someone else has a story that comes in and can get a job done for us and evolve their own game.

About moving forward to Round 1: 

Football clubs are incredibly resilient places. As I said after the game, in some ways having a game; and it’s Richmond, and it’s Round 1, and it’s the MCG, and it’s first home game, an opportunity to connect back with our supporter base, that moves your eyes forward pretty quickly.

We’re sort of done looking back, what we are today is very much looking forward to the game.

If anything, standing here (at the MCG) right now consolidates that.

We’ve got a very important game coming.

I heard [Brian Cook] talking about the level of consistency that we want to be as a football team and that’s where all of our energy goes to now.

We go into being able to make sure that we perform at the level we have or we want to, and there are still things out of that game that we need to get better at.

So, we have to take that progressive mindset into this game and just find areas that we need to improve. There was plenty to walk away from that game and say ‘we can get better’.

On Carlton fans and excitement for Round 1: 

I can’t wait.

We’ve got our job to do on the field, to be able to walk in and it’s your home game, you’ve got your supporter base here – [Brian Cook] spoke about 90,000 fans here and to hear that noise again. I just can’t wait to be able to get back out here.

We spoke about connecting back with our supporters and they love when we play a tough brand of footy.

We’ll continue to try and do that.

On the Tigers: 

I can appreciate that they’ve got a style of football that is extremely damaging.

They’re obviously trying to learn a slightly different way with the way they want to play under Adam's (Yze) guidance.

What I have seen over that period of time is a pretty dynamic style when they get it going.

There are some conversations around whether Lynch returns and a couple of important pieces – Martin as well.

We don’t get to pick their team, we’ll go about getting our own. But, there are certainly a lot of threats there that we need to make sure we’re across.

On consistency at the Club and Great Southern Bank extending their partnership: 

It’s a powerful statement.

There have been a lot of little decisions along the way, clearly shoring up some of those leadership positions over the last period of time. There have been a lot of significant moments for our Club and this is another one.

To have a co-major be able to sign up for another extended period of time, says that it’s more than just the team on the field and we’re trying to create a club that’s really stable, really united and then we can get on with just being able to talk about our performances.

We focus on what really matters and that’s all eyes in on winning and making sure we do that all together.