Carlton Hall of Fame Legend Robert Walls has called on his former club to toughen up as the Blues fall out of the top eight following Round 9.
The Blues are among the most under-pressure football clubs nearing the midway point of the season after losing four of their last five games.
A Round 9 defeat to the Western Bulldogs was a particular stinger and a loss that created plenty of headlines, one of which was former Collingwood coach Nathan Buckley suggesting Michael Voss may need to become more emotional in his approach to coaching.
Voss, a Brownlow Medallist, famously played on the edge at Brisbane but is yet to demonstrate anything other than a calm presence at Carlton.
When asked on SEN’s Sportsday, Buckley's sentiment was one Walls too shared.
“I agree (that it’s all a bit nice),” he responded.
“I think they need to toughen up.
“I think you look back over the last few coaches and I think everyone seemed to worry about hurting the feelings of the player, well they’re professional sports people, they get well paid and they’re expected to perform, they’re expected to be harder and I think there’s not enough in the team who do that and as a result, the really competitive hard-nosed teams, they’ll knock you over.”
Walls was one such club great who put the heat on Carlton in the pre-season that it was still finals or failure.
Despite comments from CEO Brian Cook and midfielder Adam Cerra in recent weeks suggesting that wasn’t the case, Walls was resolute in not backing down.
“Absolutely (it’s still finals or failure),” the former Carlton coach stated.
“That list build, the players that came in, the games that have been put into players, the age of your Charlie Curnows, Sam Walshs, Harry McKays etc… they are all at a period in their careers where they should be playing their best football.
“So there’s no excuses if they don’t play finals.”
Carlton captain Patrick Cripps said on Tuesday that despite taking a backward step to start the season, he’s confident there’s plenty of growth to come in 2023.
As he notes, the Blues will need to up their game if they are to compete with the likes of Collingwood (Round 10), Sydney (Round 11), Melbourne (Round 12), Essendon (Round 13) and Gold Coast (Round 14) before the bye.
"We feel like we're close to playing our best footy," Cripps told reporters.
"We feel like there's a lot of growth coming in our game but we're coming in with our heads up and trying to get better.
"The opportunities have been there but it was execution (that let us down against the Bulldogs)... Probably the story of our year.
"The effort and intensity have been there... we fought our way back (after being five goals down) and I'm proud of the group.
"We feel around the club we are doing a lot right but we can't get discouraged by results...I'm still very bullish of the potential of this group. I know how hard we're working and things will turn."