Hinkley: I think there's change coming at Carlton

How would Carlton and Michael Voss approach a hypothetical board meeting right now?

There generally tends to be a scheduled board meeting at this stage of the season at most clubs where the coach presents the true state of the team and its prospects.

Publicly and privately, now is the time for the coach to get a grasp on where their team is at.

Former Port Adelaide coach Ken Hinkley, who experienced countless of these board meetings, knows Voss very well having spent seven years together at Alberton.

Hinkley was asked by Gerard Whateley what he would arm himself with if he were Voss and entering such a board meeting a quarter of the way through the final year of his contract.

“It’s that time of the season where we are fulfilling our dreams or living our nightmares,” Hinkley said on SEN’s Whateley.

“It's a really interesting one, this one for Michael, without pretending to know exactly what's going on at the club.

“There's some things that Michael needs to have answers to in this board presentation. I don't think there's any doubt at all that this is not the easiest presentation.

“For Michael, he needs to get as many answers himself, I would have thought, as do the board. So I don't think this is just a one-way conversation, I think this is a grown-up conversation at Round 6, which sounds pretty early, but that's the facts.

“Michael will walk in and point to the performance of the team. They have led for the longest part of the games as the third best team in the competition, which sounds ridiculous, doesn't it? One and two are Sydney and Fremantle, and then Carlton, who have led for 62% of their games.

“He's going to walk into that board meeting and say, ‘Listen, our best is good enough, but it tends to run out at three-quarter time’.

“His job is to try and solve the fourth-quarter challenge for them and for the board. They're clearly struggling in fourth quarters. He can't go in there and not talk about that.

“When you're telling a story, you've got to use enough truth, you've got to use enough courage to back in your forecasting, and then you've just got to be strong in your beliefs of what your team can do.

“So he's walked in and says, ‘Look, we're struggling in fourth quarters, but we are playing good enough footy that we are leading a lot of games for a long period of time, but we are not winning’.

“So no matter what he says, other than that, the board is sitting there going, ‘But we’re not winning’. The members are sitting there going, ‘But we're not winning’.

“That's a bit of fact that he can lean into a little bit to promote his game style, to promote the situation they're in, but they'll use that on the opposite. They'll use that as, ‘Well, yes, we are playing well enough, and yes, we are good enough to lead for large periods of games. Why haven't we finished?’

“That's when Michael's left the room, that'll be their conversation. So he'll talk around struggling around fourth quarters, he'll talk around how good they've been in early parts of games. I would then move into, ’What's the goal here? What's the goal for us as a football club from this part of the season onwards?’”

Hinkley says Voss would need a clear goal from the board to confidently continue in his role.

“He needs some clarity around what he's trying to achieve, if he's trying to achieve something,” Hinkley continued.

“I think that's the challenge from Michael, ‘What is the goal here board?’ He needs to ask questions back of them and to find out what they expect from him.

“They might not be able to give him the correct answer. But you're the coach, you've got to ask that question. You've definitely got to ask that question and you've got to go and ask a direct question around your future.

“‘Where am I at? How much longer? How long can this go on? Are you strong enough to stand behind me still and with me still? Or is there something that I need to know today in preparation for myself?’

“I think that's a fair and reasonable question because there's just too much out there about Carlton, particularly with the last week playing out as well.

“I would think there's change coming at Carlton. I hope not for Michael's sake, but I think with what we're seeing, there's probably some sort of change coming and he needs to have that correct answer.”

But Hinkley did err on the side of caution at this particular juncture, suggesting that perhaps the Carlton board postpones any early-season catch-up with Voss given the current situation.

“If I was Carlton, I think right now, I wouldn't be bringing Michael into the board meeting,” he added.

“I think I'd be pushing that back a little bit, and going, ‘Our planned board meeting is at the mid-season bye’, because I don't think they can give him any answers or any consistency of answer with any confidence for Michael that he can continue on with his job without being distracted a little bit more.

“The last thing they need is a distraction for him. He needs to just be head down, bum up, and keep focused with his team as much as he possibly can.

“That's the only way because when you have those conversations, if you do ask a direct question you might not like the answer.

“And same for the board. If they give a position of where they’re at, they might not be able to tell the complete truth.”

Voss and his 1-5 Blues will look to bounce back against Fremantle in Perth on Saturday night.