Voss says one dinner and coffee ended Carlton role — 3aw

Michael Voss says 3aw reached the point where his Carlton tenure could not continue after one dinner with club powerbrokers and a coffee with his manager. He said he went into last Friday night’s game against Brisbane knowing it would be his last.

The former coach said the turning point came after a scheduled dinner with Carlton CEO Graham Wright and president Rob Priestley, when what was left unsaid told him enough. He described the afternoon and evening that followed as the moment the exit started to become unavoidable.

Carlton dinner with Wright and Priestley

Voss said the dinner with Wright and Priestley made him read the room differently. “You read in these situations (that) it's often what they don't say, not what they do say,” he said. “And I read enough into what they didn't say... it was on shaky ground and the inevitable was about to become clearer.”

That came after a season in which he said the week after the round eight loss to St Kilda was the first time he felt his role was untenable. Carlton had led at half-time in that match before conceding 11 goals to two in the second half, a swing that changed how he viewed his own position.

Peter Blucher coffee before Brisbane

Voss said the next clear step came last Friday morning, when he met manager and long-time friend Peter Blucher for coffee. He said he then spoke to Chris Davies soon afterwards, and that sequence set the wheels in motion for his exit.

“I had a coffee with 'Bluch' in the morning... spoke to Chris Davies soon afterwards and the wheels were set in motion,” he said. He added that the talk with Blucher mattered because he did not want the result against Brisbane to become an emotional reaction point.

He also made clear he was still trying to push the decision as far as he could. “But the fighter in you and the competitor in you wants to take it as far as you possibly can,” Voss said. He said he was hoping for a “Miracle on Grass” II and would have stayed longer had Carlton beaten Brisbane under those circumstances.

Brisbane game and Carlton exit

By the time Carlton faced Brisbane last Friday night, Voss said the decision had already settled in his mind. “Coming into that (Brisbane) game, I knew that apart from dotting the I's and crossing the T's, that this was going to be my last game,” he said. “It was my last game, but not everyone knew.”

The sequence leaves Carlton moving into its next coaching chapter with the timing of Voss’s departure already mapped out before the final siren. For Voss, the end point was not the Brisbane result itself but the dinner, the coffee and the conversations that followed.