Whateley
Carlton & Cripps Heroics - The Best Bits | The Means Test with Adam Simpson! (01.06.26)
01 Jun 2026
Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.
Chapter 1: What are the highlights of Carlton's recent performance?
Let's have a play with Carlton, shall we? Because I think Gavin from Albury has this straight up. The best bit must be Carlton. From the young players in Dean, Smith and Ison to the Blues crowds being electric, and then most importantly, Superman putting the cape on. Go Blues. Crips, you are a Carlton champion. The best bits for Tobin Brothers Funerals, a family-owned business since 1934.
Leeds still continue to come. Who does he want? Mackay's in the goal square. It's longer. It's longer to Kroos. He came off the bench. Captain fantastic. That's why they rested him so long. To send him back on with two minutes left to be the hero. He's going to kick around the corner to kick the goal. To kick the Blues back in front. Their captain.
Iconic.
Chapter 2: How did Patrick Cripps become a key player for Carlton?
It was the best bit.
It'll stand as one of the best bits of the season. Yeah.
Sleeping giant, aren't they? They are a sleeping giant. And Cripps, well done to him. And whatever's happened in the last month in terms of the turnaround of form, the way I describe it, I don't think too much has changed with the direction of the style of play. So this is a really interesting case study because the way you coach, it's a freedom within a discipline. Here's the discipline.
Within this... Do what you want. Play how you need to play. But we'd like to do this, this, and this. But around that, just be yourself. Express yourself. Don't be afraid to make mistakes. So the freedom of which the players are playing now, so they've gone from uncontested marks, 13th to first. Long kicks, 9th to 18th. They don't kick it long as much anymore.
D50 to inside 50, they've gone from 13th to second. And the kicks inside 50, they've gone from 6th to second from a retention point of view. None of that is plant. That is just the players, for whatever reason, taking a different approach mentally when they go into a game. And now Josh has got them in a position where they're playing with that freedom within the discipline.
So you can have the same style of play and it looks completely different based on the player's attitude, which is... disappointing if you're Vossy and you go, come on, boy, I had that all set up. And I think he totally gets why there's probably a change in some of the players' attitude because they feel like there's been a weight lifted for them as well. So that's just the nature of the beast.
And yeah, for them to have a win on the weekend against a quality side in Geelong. I don't think Geelong played poorly, by the way. No one's saying that, are they? Nope. And they've still got their DNA based around contest and clearance. And I think they fall back on that when needed most.
Patrick Cripps, Jacob Wiedering said with us on Crunch Time, he spoke about the psychological barrier.
Yeah. Well, I've never gone through it. I don't think I have. Where you're playing with a new regime and are you playing to prove a point? Are you playing to send off your old coach? Are you trying to keep your spot on the list? There's a lot of things that get in the way. to winning when, when the, the club's in turmoil, turmoil.
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Chapter 3: What changes have contributed to Carlton's turnaround in form?
The feeling with Carlton supporters, and that's a great feeling. It's a really good feeling to go, you never know. We might string a couple this day and look at the fixture, who we got now in the next four or five weeks. They're all winnable. Our best is good enough. And that's what makes this season a good one.
They were absolutely cast in 2023 when they lost to Essendon. They'd been to the Curnow Farm and they had four wins, four wins and a draw. And they come to Essendon on Sunday night. They may very well leave that game with five wins.
They may do. And that's the beauty of this sport. And probably the wild card round is adding a little bit of flavor to it. Because if that wasn't there, they're not making top eight.
No, no. They're in hibernation and just trying to make incremental improvements. But they have purpose here. which they can latch onto. And then Cripps himself, so Kurt Texter, I was hopeful that Cripper was going to be traded to the Kangaroos. How things change in three weeks. Those who doubted him now are eating humble pie as big as an elephant.
It's about the players around him as well, Gerard. I think his form has dipped a little bit. I think the questions from the outside were, how does he work with Walsh and Hewitt and these types of players and Smith was on the outside and it looks too slow and it's getting on the outside and they're getting hurt and Cripps is part of the problem.
I think in essence he's actually part of the solution and how do they build around him is still part of what Carlton's best looks like for this year. So I don't know what it looks like in the future. I can't predict it. But at the moment it seems like the Walsh-Smith-Cripps combination is working pretty well and Hewitt's complementing that.
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