CLOSE the gap.
The bye has given Carlton the chance to reset, refocus and take stock in what has already been a big year to date.
Sitting 9-4 just past the midway point of the season, AFL Senior Coach Michael Voss joined AFL360 ahead of the upcoming AFL Carlton Respects Game, speaking on the Blues’ approach to the bye and what their aspirations would look like upon their return to action this week.
Rewinding the clock back 12 months to the Blues’ form post-bye in 2023, Voss said the Blues had “reengaged” with the same model they’d implemented last year, but knew the second half of the campaign wouldn’t be that simple.
“We treat it with rest and recovery in mind. There’s the immediate, the here and now, but you’re also playing the long game as well. There’s still 10 rounds to play, there’s still plenty of work to be had,” Voss said.
“There’s a really fine balance from a mindset [perspective] to click them back into gear, and also being really cautious of what you train over that period of time. Every team will have their own way of going about that, we feel like we’ve got a good model . . . it was four days [break] for most, but we drip-fed a few that had five days, some had seven.”
Voss said the lynchpin of what the Blues would look to do in the second half of the season was very much the same as what had defined the first half.
Always looking at the identity of his team, Voss reiterated Carlton’s pre-season focus on being a consistent home-and-away team, with that standing above the rest for whatever success may come the Blues’ way in future years.
For Voss, the Blues will look to continue to adapt — but the identity and non-negotiables remain the same.
“What we’ve been fortunate to have is some really good visibility on the competition. In the last 11 weeks, we’ve effectively played the top 10 teams. We’ve got really good visibility, we’ve been able to benchmark ourselves on our styles, we’ve got things we’re really pleased with and some things we’ve got to continue to work on.
“We keep adapting. It’s about trying to keep your identity as the centrepiece. As you’re adapting and evolving and emphasising things, there’s still this centrepiece around identity that you’ve got to get right. Every week, we expect the same effort from our players: our contest and pressure is clearly one of those.”
In terms of the standouts across the competition both in recent years and this year, Voss said what the Blues are chasing is what he believes will allow them to go to the next level.
“We’re quite okay to look at our competition and acknowledge that last year’s Grand Finalists, Collingwood and Brisbane, lived in the top-four space for a long period of time. They were going five or six years just to get one opportunity.
“We haven’t lived in that space long enough yet as a football club. We’re trying to close that gap on what it looks like week-to-week, we’re also trying to close that gap on what it looks like across seasons. We know we’ve still got work to do, there’s still a lot of refinement to find the best version of ourselves, but we’ve bridge that gap this year.”
