What Voss told Curnow 10 minutes before trade deadline

After wrapping up his first pre-season with Carlton, new CEO Graham Wright feels great excitement for where the club sits ahead of 2026.

In an off-season that saw significant change both on and off the field, Wright and the Blues enter the new year with a fresh dynamic and even fresher faces as they look to build from their disappointing campaign in '25.

Facilitating a historic trade, filling the holes of departing free agents and overhauling the coaching box, Wright certainly got his hands dirty within his first year in charge, well and truly living up to his 'agent of change' tag.

Joining Gerard Whateley on SEN, Wright explored all things Carlton just weeks out from the new season, revealing all the behind-the-scenes decision making ahead of what the club hopes to be a positive year.

What needed change?

“We’d had a number of years where we were very similar,” Wright told SEN’s Whateley.

“What I mean by that - in relation to personnel and coaching personnel. Bringing in some new IP is something that we discussed and had a look at.

“We are a contested, clearance team - in the shadow of Michael (Voss), which is what his DNA is. We don’t want to change that.

“(The focus turned to) how the game moves forward, and how do we move forward with it. Those things were really clear.

“When you look statistically, we were 17th in disposal efficiency, our kicking wasn’t good enough, our connection inside 50 – those things, that are real coaching things…

“For me, it was asking a lot of questions of our people and our players, where we wanted to go and what changes did we need to make.

“We looked at all of those things and made a number of coaching changes – brought Travis Boak in from a leadership and cultural perspective. We just looked at environment and what we were trying to make.

“There was a whole heap of change – it might take a bit of time to gel, but hopefully everyone gives us a bit of time, and we’ll see how we go.”

Was it a full reset?

“Yeah, absolutely.

“I think when you look at these things, certainly from my perspective, when you look at a football department, it’s ‘how is it going to function.’

“You need constant change – if you’re standing still, you’re dead. We needed to look at things differently and bring in some new IP. Overall, we’re happy and comfortable.”

Would you consider taking a big step back in order to launch forward?

“We probably did that with Charlie Curnow leaving, to be honest.

“When you look at it, he is a two-time Coleman Medallist – I know he only kicked 32 goals last year for us and he was injured at the back half of the year so didn’t play the last three or four games – he still had four years left on a contract.

“He made it very, very clear that he didn’t want to be there. From my perspective, I want people to be at the Carlton Football Club with gratitude, and people that just genuinely want to be a part of the Carlton Football Club.

“When we knew that Charlie was as desperate as he was to get out, it’s a little bit of a reset because we’re taking a few draft picks.

“We were lucky to get Will Hayward in that as well, but we felt that that would solidify us for bringing Harry Dean in last year, and we’ve bene lucky enough to have Cody Walker commit himself to come next year.

“There’s salary cap space that is created, we bring in Ben Ainsworth, we bring in Campbell Chesser and also Ollie Florent and Liam Reidy – five new players, and overall, that is a bit of a reset.

“We feel like it has us in a good spot going forward.”

What did the fans think of Curnow's departure?

“Everyone in the lead up was disappointed and didn’t want Charlie to go, and we were the same.

“10 minutes out from the trade period finishing, Vossy rang Charlie and said, ‘it’s not going to happen, you’ll be with us.’ That’s where we thought it would be.

“I’m sure our members and supporters would have loved Charlie to stay and we were the same, but when it became clear that he wasn’t going to… we didn’t have a lot of feedback through our membership that was negative.

“We feel we got the best deal for him.”

On Michael Voss’ contract

“Bringing Chris Davies (GM of Football) on board, Chris, myself and Vossy had a lot of conversations – even with Rob Priestley (club president) at the end of last year, around putting Carlton first.

“Regardless of anyone’s contract, we are putting Carlton first – how do we go forward, and what is the best way for us.

“Vossy would have much preferred for Charlie to be there but that’s not the case, we moved forward really quickly and were able to bring brought in some players that will add to and change the way we play - bringing in some pace and some ball use; some guys that will be able to complement what we’ve got.

“We know we have some really good players, some good young players coming through… he was fine with that and all in on the decision.”

What can the fans expect from the Blues in 2026?

“We’d like to think that they are going to see an exciting team – a younger team on the field.

“We’ve got a lot of exciting young talent that we want to bring through the team, but we’ve still got our Sam Walsh, Patrick Cripps and Jacob Weitering – a lot of high-quality players that are going to complement these young players.

“I think our members should see some real excitement.”

On Sam Walsh’s contract

“We’ve had really good dialogue with him and his management - he has made it clear that he wants to stay.

“All of these things come with a price, there’s a tenure element to it and a money element to it and we understand that.

“He is a free agent, and we understand the environment that we’re in. We had a couple of free agents leave last year, and they’ve got every right to have a look.

“We’re really comfortable and we are progressing – hopefully that ends in a positive for us.”

Will that happen in the first half of the season?

“I’d like to think so, absolutely.”

Listen to the full interview below: