The noise surrounding Carlton after their Opening Round shellacking at the hands of Sydney has taken on a familiar tone: internal voices turning on the club, the finger-pointing and the blame-shifting that seems to follow every stumble.
Former Carlton co-captain Sam Docherty was withdrawn from a Blues function at the MCG on Thursday night after his criticism of the club's game style in their heavy loss to Sydney in Opening Round. The decision came after Docherty said in a voice message that was aired on a podcast: "when the game gets somewhat slower and there's more open brand footy, that's when Carlton is f***ing horrible".
Coach Michael Voss chose not to dwell on the personal nature of the attack. Instead, speaking before Tuesday training, he reframed Docherty's comments as evidence of something larger: a damaging pattern that has been baked into Carlton's culture. Voss directly linked the outburst to a speech he delivered at last year's best-and-fairest event.
"People keep asking me about last year's best and fairest speech and 'culturally we defeat ourselves'. I just felt it was an example of that," Voss said.
The 63-point loss itself was the kind of collapse that haunts coaching tenure. Sydney, jittery and error-prone in the first half, found their legs after half-time with Isaac Heeney, Errol Gulden and others combining for a 20.12 (132) to 10.9 (69) victory. More alarming still: Carlton had led by 22 points three minutes into the third quarter but trailed by 39 at the final break after the Swans kicked 12 goals in the term.
What Docherty diagnosed, however, was less about one game and more about a pattern he says Carlton has been unable to break. He later clarified on 3AW that he hadn't expected his thoughts to be broadcast verbatim, but that he stood by his analysis because he had been discussing these structural weaknesses throughout late 2025 and into this season.
Voss did not shy away from the substance of the criticism, even if he questioned the manner and timing. Asked whether Docherty's assessment matched his own view of where the team had fallen short, the coach appeared to acknowledge a troubling reality.
"All of those have accountability when you don't finish the game that you want. So that does give us feedback as a group. It caught us a little bit by surprise, because the information we had before that was certainly not that. We have found moments to be able to fight when it was needed, and we didn't through the third quarter when we needed to."
The Blues' struggle in open play, once the contest loosens and space opens up, has long been diagnosed by observers. Carlton has been structured for development, having traded high-end talent toward the future. That future remains uncertain; Voss is in the final year of his contract, and while he will be out of contract at the end of the season, the club has publicly backed him to remain.
What Voss sees in the Docherty episode, though, is not individual criticism but a symptom of how Carlton talks to itself when things go wrong. The club's own voices become the loudest source of noise, drowning out the work being done to address the problems. It is a familiar pattern for a club that has been rebuilding.
Richmond visit the MCG on Thursday. The team will need to show they can respond not just to an opening-round loss, but to the turbulence that follows it.