If Carlton sacks Michael Voss, recent history suggests it should avoid likes of John Longmire and Adam Simpson

Australia Broadcast Center

01-07-2025

As the AFL season rounds towards the finals, a number of angsty teams are considering where exactly they stand in the league's pecking order.
Professional sport is a cruel caper. Every team comes into the new season full of hope regardless of how the previous one ended. New game plans, new fitness regimes and new players are all floated as potential game-changers.
Then the season actually begins and the sobering reality of where you stand as a team actually hits.
Carlton came into 2025 as one of the popular pre-season premiership picks. In the months that have followed, the Blues have fallen flat, continuing what has been a steady decline since an improbable run to the preliminary final in 2023.
Michael Voss is the latest Carlton coach to be tasked with the seemingly impossible task of reviving the AFL's fallen giant.
To Voss's credit, he has done better than most of the seven full-time senior coaches who have followed David Parkin, the last man to lead Carlton to a premiership.
This is a role that has chewed up and spat out coaches of all shapes and sizes in the last three decades. It has not discriminated between first-timers or coaches with glittering resumes.
Almost two years ago to the date, Carlton made a decision to stick by Voss in the face of public pressure. Voss and the players thrived as a result of the vote of confidence, soaring from 15th on the ladder after Round 13 to within two wins of an elusive 17th premiership.
Carlton's decision-makers will be facing a major case of déjà vu as they find themselves in a near-identical spot two years later.
Voss will once again be afforded the chance to see out the season, but barring another 2023-style Houdini act, he is doubtful at best to see the final year of his contract in 2026.
Carlton is one of five clubs to have employed three or more coaches in the last decade, with Essendon, Gold Coast, North Melbourne and St Kilda the others. It is no coincidence that neither of the quintet have sniffed any discernible sustained success in that time.
Incoming CEO Graham Wright, the man who helped build Collingwood's 2023 premiership team, will be tasked with either building around Voss or finding his replacement.
Wright expertly handled the Magpies' transition away from former head coach and club legend Nathan Buckley in 2021, and his decision to replace Buckley with Craig McRae has already reaped significant rewards.
Carlton fans will hope Wright can make a similarly astute hire if Voss is indeed shown the door at the end of the season.
Voss is one of four current coaches who are at their second stop, joining Essendon's Brad Scott, Gold Coast's Damien Hardwick and North Melbourne's Alastair Clarkson. St Kilda coach Ross Lyon is at his third stop, although he has returned to his original club after a stint with Fremantle.
It is unclear whether any of the quintet will be around to see their club's next premiership. Hardwick probably has the best chance, given the strength of Gold Coast's current list and the wealth of talent coming through the northern academies.
What these five coaches have in common is they have all been required to come in and be stabilising forces first at clubs with shaky cultures. Essentially, you are forced to be a football boss while still being the senior coach.
Voss has come in and made Carlton competent again, and that means something. But with the ship now relatively steady, the prerogative is winning.
Naturally, given Carlton's stature as one of the 'big' Victorian clubs, the Blues will be linked to some of the more established names available on the market.
John Longmire and Adam Simpson are two coaches with premiership experience, while Ken Hinkley has led a perennial finalist for the last decade.
But a look back at the league's recent history suggests avoiding the flashy experienced coach might be the right move.
Since Parkin led Carlton to its last premiership in 1995, only three other coaches have won a premiership at their second or third stop.
Malcolm Blight came off four grand final defeats with Geelong to lead Adelaide to consecutive premierships in 1997 and 1998 and then Leigh Matthews followed up his Collingwood premiership from 1990 with three more at Brisbane between 2001 and 2003.
Mick Malthouse is the last retread AFL coach to win a premiership, having guided Collingwood to the 2010 premiership after stints at Footscray and West Coast.
The rise in newer coaches winning premierships is a departure from previous generations.
In the decade leading to Carlton's 1995 premiership, six of the 10 flags were won by retread coaches as Malthouse, Allan Jeans and Robert Walls all hoisted the cup having previously coached elsewhere.
It is unclear why exactly newer coaches tend to find more success.
Usually they are plucked from strong programs where they have served lengthy apprenticeships as assistant coaches or in other roles.
Clarkson's 2013 Hawthorn side featured Chris Fagan as the football boss and Luke Beveridge and Adam Simpson as assistant coaches, a trio which won premierships since leaving the Hawks.
The high-performance era the AFL is currently in means the game is constantly evolving. It is why you rarely see coaches winning premierships with decades in between their first and last, with Geelong's Chris Scott being the exception.
While it has no bearing on Carlton's decision-making, it is interesting to note that the anti-retread coach trend also appears to be prevalent in the NRL.
Before Ivan Cleary led Penrith to the last three NRL premierships, Wayne Bennett was the last retread to win a premiership. Ironically, his triumph with St George Illawarra came in the same year Malthouse won his flag with the Pies.
This history is tough if you're a coach like Voss, who at just 49, is still extremely young by coaching standards and no doubt harbours ambitions of lifting the premiership cup as a coach, after doing it three times as Brisbane's captain.
Do you simply give up and concede you're better off as an assistant somewhere? There is no proof of giving up being in Voss's DNA in our three-plus decades of knowing him.
Wright's call is a pivotal one for the next decade in Carlton's history. He has built premiership teams in his last two spots, and this decision will ultimately decide whether he sees another at Princes Park.
Excruciatingly difficult decisions such as these are why CEOs are paid the big bucks, and Wright has shown time and time again that he doesn't lack the ruthlessness for the role.
As Wright's Carlton and other clubs approach key calls on their coaches in this summer and beyond, they'd all be well served to look to the past in order to realise they need to look to the future.