From 49 points down early in the third quarter, Carlton\u2019s second-half fightback \u2013 a blue moon event in 2026 \u2013 should breathe some life into a downtrodden fan base.<\/p>\n
It wasn\u2019t a win. But after a season of sorrow, pushing the reigning premiers to the brink on their home deck almost felt like it.<\/p>\n
When asked about his coaching future and whether such a performance should convince Blues officials to back him, Voss said he didn\u2019t \u201ccoach for his job\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cI coach for building a culture, and hopefully by the time, by the time I leave here, we\u2019ve got winning behaviors, and understand clearly what that looks like,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe clearly understand what that looks like when we meet them, and we clearly understand what that looks like when we don\u2019t, and I coach to to create an environment that enables that to happen.<\/p>\n
\u201cOften people will make it about your job, but the reality is, I\u2019ll make it about something else, and that\u2019s what we what we\u2019ve got to continue to reinforce within our own environment.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"Voss](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/b89111bfcccfdd05d8bd84824b37016e.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n
Few gave the Blues any chance of an upset at the Gabba but when a bullish Voss boasted pre-match they had spent all week working on their defence, their fans might have expected more than what they served up in the first half.<\/p>\n
They trailed Brisbane by 38 at major break and their 18 points was a season-low halftime score.<\/p>\n
For a team that had spent all week working on its defence, the scoreboard and the tackle count \u2013 31-15 in Brisbane\u2019s favour \u2013 was telling.<\/p>\n
Perhaps even worse, the Blues\u2019 sole strength this season \u2013 clearance \u2013 was being dominated by Brisbane.<\/p>\n
Football boss Chris Davies took a red pen to the team\u2019s deficiencies in the pre-game and his critiques seemed to be playing out in real time.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe challenge for us this year \u2026 has been short periods of time in the game,\u201d Davies told 3AW.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen we\u2019re not getting ascendancy from a stoppage perspective we\u2019re not able to move the ball as well as we need to from the back half.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen stoppages are going against us and field position is going against us we haven\u2019t been good enough to this point to be able to address that.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"'First](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/faa938934f55231905639c8dec9fa85d.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n
It felt like a new low for Voss\u2019 men. <\/p>\n
But then the unthinkable happened. Carlton came out after halftime and showed some fight.<\/p>\n
A five-goal salvo to end the third term cut the margin from 49 points to 20 at the turn for home. When Harry McKay kicked Carlton\u2019s sixth-straight a minute into the final quarter it was game-on.<\/p>\n
Even after Brisbane responded, the Blues still refused to yield.<\/p>\n
Davies said Voss \u201cdeserves great credit\u201d for keeping the playing group connected despite the dour on-field results.<\/p>\n
Their second-half fight certainly looked more like a team that believes in itself and its coach.<\/p>\n
The question is, how much more rope does Voss have to play with? And did this performance give him any more?<\/p>\n
Davies deftly danced around a definitive answer when asked if the club had to make a call on the coach\u2019s future before the end of the season.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think \u2026 that will clearly be a discussion from the commentators,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy role right here, right now is to provide as much support to Michael as I possibly can.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe knows \u2013 he\u2019s a realist \u2013 that our performance needs to get better, and he\u2019s working really hard to get that done and I give him great credit for his want to make our team better.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"15 hours ago. Updated\u00a04 hours ago News Sport Network Half an hour later he and the rest of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":7835,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[8955,3041,23,133,99,5010,8956,368,8957,8527,120,212,1079,8958],"class_list":["post-7834","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-brisbane","tag-matchidafl20260902","tag-albert-perez","tag-australia","tag-australia-and-new-zealand","tag-brisbane","tag-carlton-blues","tag-eliminational-final-looming","tag-getty-images-inc","tag-live-scores","tag-michael-voss","tag-oceania","tag-queensland","tag-the-gabba","tag-two-time-reigning-premiers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7834","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7834"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7834\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7835"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7834"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7834"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7834"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}