Craig McRae’s text message to Michael Voss comes to light before Collingwood-Carlton clash

Collingwood coach Craig McRae has revealed he texted rival Carlton counterpart Michael Voss to offer his support, ahead of Thursday night’s MCG showdown between the fierce AFL rivals. Voss’s Blues are yet to win in 2025 after losing their first three games of the season and it’s ramped up the pressure on the under-fire coach.

Speculation has been swirling around the AFL world that Voss only has a number of weeks to either turn the club’s fortunes around or face the axe as Carlton coach. The Blues went into the new season as one of the teams fancied by experts to potentially end their 30-year premiership drought, but fans have been left fuming after their poor start that already has their finals hopes looking a little precarious.

Carlton have been overrun late in games in each of their three defeats and it’s a worrying trend that Voss will need to sort out as soon as possible. Another loss to fierce rivals Collingwood in front of what’s expected to be an 80,000-plus crowd at the MCG would be another disastrous blow for Carlton’s top-eight chances.

And McRae said he reached out to his former premiership teammate to offer his support, after watching Voss’s men slump to their third-straight defeat, against the Bulldogs on Saturday. Voss was McRae’s captain at Brisbane and the pair have remained good mates after winning three premierships together in their playing days with the Lions. And McRae said he felt the need to contact his rival coach after Carlton’s most recent loss to the Dogs.

“I actually texted (Voss) on Saturday morning,” McRae said. “I just watched the game (against the Bulldogs) and watched him closely as a mate. This is a unique job… There are only 17 others doing the same crazy job. I understand what you have to navigate through at times… I reached out to him to see if he was OK. (But) this is probably not the week to catch up.”

McRae admitted the clash between Collingwood and Carton “means more” to fans and players than just about any other regular season game. And the Magpies coach warned his players would need to be ready for a ‘sh*t-fight’ against a Blues team he expects will be fully up for the battle.

Carlton’s Sam Docherty understands fans’ frustrations

Carlton veteran Sam Docherty admits the players are frustrated with their winless start to the season and understands the backlash from fans. But the 31-year-old says the team will be doing everything in their power to get their season on track, starting with Thursday night’s clash with their bitter rivals.

“The Blues fans are enormous in pushing us along the line but we also understand their frustrations,” Docherty said. “We’re frustrated as well, to be honest. Parts of our game is going really well but there’s other parts (that are not). Probably the most frustrating part as a fan is when we’re not using the ball very well, which is a big part of what’s going on at the moment. We’ve got some work to do and we’re not shying away from that, but we understand it’s a long year and we’re only at round three, so we’ll keep ticking along.”

The Blues have struggled for points after averaging just 68 points in defeats to Richmond, Hawthorn and the Bulldogs. The absence of former Coleman Medallist Harry McKay and midfielder Elijah Hollands certainly hasn’t helped, with Carlton leaving the door open for the pair to return from indefinite leave due to personal reasons, against Collingwood. But Docherty insists there is enough quality in the side to fix their goal-kicking woes and poor ball usage.

“It’s not like we can’t do it. That’s the problem,” Docherty said. “We worked really hard over the pre-season but for whatever reason at the start of the season we’ve just gone away from playing it consistently through games. We can do it, and we’ve done it in parts of games, but the reality is we haven’t stuck to what we’ve needed to do for long enough to get a result we need.”