AFL 2024: Michael Voss says Carlton bye plan prevented ‘pristine’ performance

Carlton coach Michael Voss says a deliberately heavy block of training in the last month could be partly responsible for his side’s unconvincing performance against an injury-hit Richmond on Thursday night.

Voss said planning for the Blues’ round 2 bye had included a push for players to “go to the line hard” heading into the Brisbane clash last week, which may have added to fatigue in a narrow five-point win littered with skill errors.

The coach said Jacob Weitering was likely to return after the bye with Caleb Marchbank also available to play, but could not say when star midfielder Sam Walsh was set to resume full training.

Voss stuck to Carlton’s line that more information on Walsh and Jack Martin’s progress would be provided when the Blues return from their mini-break next week, as he firmly denied more surgery was being considered for Walsh following his history of serious back issues.

“No” was the coach’s response when asked if another operation was being looked at for the 23-year-old.

“(Walsh and Martin) are just going to continue to progress what they need to go through … we’ll update everyone when we get to next week and sort of let everyone know what’s going on,” Voss said.

“Certainly Weiters is progressing really well, I guess the round hasn’t absolutely been set in stone just yet, but he’ll be round 3 or round 4, and (Caleb) Marchbank’s doing very well as well … he’s been full training for a few weeks now, so he’ll be right to go after the bye.”

Weitering’s return from a high grade calf strain would bolster Carlton’s backline after conceding 81 and 85 points in the first two rounds, but Voss pointed out an uncharacteristic leakage from stoppages had been responsible for Richmond’s scoring on Thursday.

“They were able to generate a pretty significant score from a source that we do very well defending … they were scoring too easily from that particular source, so that was unusual,” he said.

“Credit where credit’s due, if you just purely look at Richmond’s performance tonight, they had a couple of injuries, they came off a five-day break … I thought they were really impressive tonight.”

Voss said it was “bizarre” to have played two matches before 10 opposition teams had even begun their seasons, but the Blues had long been able to plan for their unconventional round 2 bye as he conceded their approach may have affected the performance against the Tigers.

“What we’ve decided to do is probably go to the line hard over the last four weeks, so it probably means we haven’t been as pristine because we’ve trained pretty hard over that point of time,” he said.

“The view was always to get to here and see what sort of shape we were in, and use it as a bit of rest and recovery and then launch into the season from here.

“We use it for what it is, we get the rest we need and then we reset ourselves for North Melbourne after the bye.”

Voss said there were no concerns for Orazio Fantasia’s fitness, with the injury-prone small forward subbed out at the final break but only to keep the Blues’ team balance when Corey Durdin’s fresh legs were introduced.