Carlton coach Michael Voss is bracing for one of the toughest assignments in football as the Blues travel to the Gabba to face Brisbane in AFL Round 9, 2026, openly conceding his under-fire group will need to be near-flawless to topple the back-to-back premiership chasers.
"You see recent history and we've watched enough of them," Voss said when asked how Carlton had prepared. "When you come to these particular games, when you're sort of seeing what has been the best team in the competition over the last couple of years, you tend to know their game pretty familiar."
Voss, who has himself worn premiership glory at the Gabba as a Lions great, played down the relevance of his Round 1 comeback win against Brisbane. "I walked Harry Dean around here before just trying to give him a couple of little life lessons," he said. "Took a fairly reasonable mark at training himself the other day. There's some things you can touch base on, but it's so far ago, it has very little relevance."
The Blues have been bedevilled by lapses in 2026, and Voss did not shy from naming the problem. "We had a disappointing week last week. Previously to that we've been relatively consistent outside a few minutes, which has obviously cost us dearly," he said. "Trying to replicate that intensity across what is a really good team and they ask a lot in all phases of the game, we're going to have to make sure we're pretty on."
Asked if a famous upset could redefine Carlton's season, Voss preferred to focus on process. "It'd be pretty large, but it's one of those ones where you don't necessarily think about outcome," he said. "What we have to really sort of focus on is making sure that we get our game together and we stay connected throughout the whole game to give ourselves the best possible chance to win. This is a pretty tough environment to win in. They're obviously a very good side. We're going to have to do a lot right."
Voss admitted the recurring theme of Carlton playing well for stretches before unravelling had been "frustrating" but said the staff had used the lapses to find marginal gains.
"We've sort of used those moments to find where are the marginal gains for us to get better. That's probably where we're at as a team when you're sort of living on that knife's edge a little bit in terms of performances," he said. "We have a quarter like we did last week and it's extremely disappointing, so you got to go to work on your game. We obviously defensively let ourselves down and we've got to be better. We're just going to have to ask more from one another throughout this game."
George Hewett returns to the Carlton 22 for the first time in weeks, with Voss confirming his selection. "He'll play. He's been really strong over the last couple of weeks. Added a couple more things into his game. He's been a really valuable teammate for us. You bang the door down through selection."
Voss closed with a reminder of the fundamentals. "You put that to a side and focus on what the next contest is for us and what's the next play. We sort of build our game from there, and effectively that's how winning's done. It's done over time. It's building it from the bottom to the top, and we'll take that approach coming to this game."