The Rollercoaster Ride of Michael Voss at Carlton
Michael Voss’s tenure as the head coach of Carlton has come to an end, marking the conclusion of a tumultuous 10 weeks into his fifth year in charge. If one were to encapsulate his time with the Blues in a single word, it would be: rollercoaster. Every time fans thought they had a grasp on what the team was capable of, they would veer off in a completely different direction—sometimes for the better, and sometimes not.
Voss made his final move when he resigned after the club’s round nine loss to Brisbane, a performance that many considered their best of the season. This defeat came against the team he once captained to three consecutive premierships as a player, adding another layer of complexity to his departure.
The 50-year-old coach took over the Blues during a period of optimism at the start of 2022. The club had been working on a deep list rebuild since 2015, aiming to build a true contender. However, the rushed appointment of David Teague as senior coach quickly fell apart.
At the time, Carlton had one of the most promising young spines in the game, featuring players like Jacob Weitering, Patrick Cripps, Harry McKay, Charlie Curnow, and Tom De Koning. Sam Walsh was emerging as a superstar, and the club had invested heavily in the midfield with Adam Cerra and George Hewett, along with spending big on Adam Saad and Zac Williams.
Carlton fans were desperate for success. Over the previous 20 years, the club had only managed two finals appearances, undergone two major rebuilds, and suffered five wooden spoons. They had also sacked two coaches in three years, making Voss the man brought in to transform the group into a top-eight side after a long stint at Port Adelaide under Ken Hinkley.
With this new role came a fresh game style, inspired by what the Power were doing and the reigning premiers Melbourne. It could be summed up in three words: contest and clearance. The Blues aimed to dominate in the middle of the ground and use a hammer-like approach to win contests, ultimately allowing McKay and Curnow to score.
This strategy helped turn Cripps into a dual Brownlow Medallist. Voss’s first five games as coach already hinted at the rollercoaster ride that would define the next five years. In those initial matches, Carlton would build huge leads against Hawthorn and Port Adelaide before collapsing late and barely winning by a goal.
These performances were a microcosm of what the Blues delivered throughout the 2022 season. They spent all of 2022 hovering around the top four, remaining inside the top eight the entire season, and seemed ready to deliver on the promise of September success. But then they lost five of their last six games and missed the finals. The final game of the 2022 season ended in total humiliation, with a loss to Collingwood that many fans consider the worst in their lives.
From the depths of the rollercoaster, Carlton delivered a dizzying ride in 2023. After round five, they were fourth on the ladder, but by round 13, they were 15th. That round 13 loss to Essendon had fans and pundits questioning whether Voss’s time as coach would end after just 18 months. What happened next? They went on a fairytale run all the way to a five-goal lead over Brisbane in that year’s preliminary final. Things clicked offensively, the list got healthy, and suddenly they were the team winning close games and building momentum.
They won narrow finals over Sydney and Melbourne, the latter a total shock, before going down to the Lions and blowing that early 30-point lead (again). Talk about a rollercoaster ride.
And then 2024 began with the tailwind of the incredible finish to the previous season. The Blues looked as though they’d finally matured into a true contender and had broken through all of the teething pains of the Voss era. In round 15 of that season, they battered perennial contenders Geelong by 10 goals and sat firmly inside the top four. This writer is loathed to admit he left the MCG that night finally ready to let go of years of being let down and believe his team was finally, genuinely, actually, good.
Come round 19, Carlton was second on the ladder, and the questions were now about how best to position the team for an assault on the premiership. It was their first real crack at doing so since 2000. They then lost five of their last six games and slumped all the way to eighth. The wheels didn’t just fall off. The whole car exploded. My bad for finally having faith, I suppose.
Carlton were destroyed in that elimination final in 2024; conceding the first 60 points of the game to the team that had ended their fairytale campaign the previous year, Brisbane. Decisions made in that game and across those final few weeks fractured the playing list. Matthew Kennedy left, Curnow was frustrated and would leave a year later, and the club was forced to pick up the pieces.
At this point, it was almost impossible to know what to make of Voss. They had just spent a full season looking like a genuine contender before everything wilted. Just like it had in 2022. But that was, really, the end of the rollercoaster. Three wild seasons filled with ‘what ifs’. The next year, 2025, Carlton turned over key players in order to refresh the list, cutting depth and limping through an injury plagued year that never once crossed into the top eight.
They had a new president in Rob Priestley and a new CEO in Graham Wright. Voss had one year left on his contract, and the majority of fans and pundits expected the new Carlton bosses to shake hands with the coach, part ways, and begin a new era once again. Instead, they shocked the vast majority of supporters by strongly backing Voss and guaranteeing his job. They didn’t hand him a new contract or any reassurances that he would actually coach the entirety of 2026, but backed him to continue on.
It doesn’t even feel like hindsight to say that the wrong decision was made because everyone was largely shouting it from the rooftops at the time. Wright baulked at the tough call and now Voss has resigned 10 weeks into the season, having seen the writing on the wall.
Carlton’s 2026 season has been defined by the same rollercoaster games that they battled through all the way back in 2022 with those losses to Hawthorn, Port Adelaide, and then Collingwood at the end. They continued to plague them, particularly in 2025. They’ve led at half time more weeks than they haven’t, but have just one win to show for it nine weeks in. This same pattern of defeat has been so ingrained in the players and coaches, that you could see it coming from a mile away.
The 2022 loss to Collingwood that nuked their season, the 2023 preliminary final, multiple big games in 2024, and now it was just common practice to fall apart in second halves across 2025 and 2026. Voss had no answers for it. Frankly, he had proven he couldn’t solve the problem in 2025, and it’s Wright’s biggest failing that the club allowed it to continue on into 2026, becoming the most analysed and discussed game plan in footy.
And that was the issue. The crash and bash style Voss brought to the club in 2022, which sporadically brought with it success, didn’t cut the mustard anymore. The Demons, Power, and Dockers, teams playing a similar style, had all either moved on to newer more ball movement and speed focused methods tailored to recent rule changes, or they had just sacked their coaches in the hopes of creating that change in 2026.
In Melbourne’s case, it has worked beautifully. Steven King has taken over and turned the dour Dees into the fourth best offensive team in the game. They had the courage to sack a premiership coach in Simon Goodwin and move out legends of the club in Clayton Oliver, Christian Petracca, and Steven May, and were rewarded for it.
Carlton meanwhile meandered into 2026, making changes everywhere except the one spot that actually needed it. And before they could make the call to sack Voss and correct that mistake, six months too late, he pulled the pin and packed up his things, finishing up after a decent fightback effort against the team that defined both his playing and coaching career, Brisbane.
He leaves the Blues with a higher win percentage than any coach they’ve had since the legendary David Parkin and Robert Walls. Unfortunately for Carlton fans, that winning percentage is a tick over 50. Which about sums up their 21st century.
Voss was brought into the club to be the final piece of the puzzle. To lead this group to perennial contention across the first half of the 2020s, following a deep rebuild. For the second half of 2023 and the first half of 2024, it looked like he was on the path to achieving that goal. Ultimately however, he fell short.
It’s not all Voss’ fault, of course. The club had a four-year run of injury luck that always left them shorthanded. The rebuild itself didn’t go to plan either. Led by list manager Stephen Silvagni, Carlton missed out on a number of trade targets and ultimately burnt five first-round picks, three inside the top 10, on players who were gone within five years.
If you want to go deep into the weeds, Carlton blew almost every draft pick they had between 2010 and 2014, leaving them effectively needing to import every senior body from other clubs to fill out the list.
But at the end of the day, the buck always stops with the senior coach in professional sports. Voss had his run, and it has come to its natural end. His game plan went out of style 18 months ago, and he hasn’t been able to reinvent it.
For many Carlton fans 30 or younger, he will have delivered many of the best and worst memories of their sporting lives. The high of the finals run in 2023 and the lows that were the final weeks of the 2022 and 2024 seasons.
A rollercoaster you’d pay good money for.
