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Whateley

The Leadership Portfolio with Luke Hodge (12.05.26)

12 May 2026

Transcription

Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.

Chapter 1: What are the implications of Michael Voss resigning as Carlton's coach?

0.031 - 4.879 Gerard Whateley

Our leadership portfolio takes on additional gravitas today with Luke Hodge in the studio.

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4.919 - 17.078 Luke Hodge

Hello to you, Hodgie. Morning, Gerard. The old discussion, we need to have the chat. That's not great, but I think it was clear the writing's been on the wall for a while. I think Ken said it, am I in your plans? Am I in your future plans?

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17.058 - 37.559 Luke Hodge

If you look back what's happened over the last six to nine months, they trade away their best player, equal best player with Cripps, to Sydney for future picks and a few role players. So they're shoring up the future of the football club, which doesn't play well for Vossie. And even then, when you hear about righty, there's... questioned McRae if he was available or interested to come across.

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38.139 - 56.143 Luke Hodge

I think the writing's pretty clear there. So even though you walk away saying, geez, they look pretty convincing in the second half, it's been a tale that's happened too many times this season. And the decision's right. There's no point continuing on for the rest of the season and more gossip going on. Vossi's held himself as well as you possibly could.

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56.123 - 59.147 Luke Hodge

over the first 10, 9, 10 rounds of the season.

Chapter 2: How has Carlton's performance affected Michael Voss's coaching decisions?

59.187 - 75.711 Luke Hodge

But I guess for the Carlton Footy Club, their next decision is who's going to be the right person for us. And when you've got blokes like Horse, Buckley, Ken Hinckley all getting spoken about in a line with Tassie, and then they've got Simmo who's sitting inside the football club, so he's got a clear understanding of he'll be able to turn things around.

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76.132 - 81.279 Luke Hodge

They had to make a decision now so they're not rushed and get beaten by Tassie for who can take one of those guys.

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82.482 - 111.24 Gerard Whateley

The fatal flaw in the Carlton make-up, and it hasn't been a 10-week thing, is their incapacity to be able to stop momentum, to stop sequences of goals, and it has become more graphic this year, but it has been a marker of their decline. And ultimately, whether that's attitudinal or spiritual, there has to be a tactical element to it, and that does get sheeted home to the coach.

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111.22 - 128.84 Luke Hodge

Yeah, well, I think that's – if you look at the teams that have done well in big games, when things have gone for them or against them, being able to make a few tweaks from coaches or senior players, it's not just one or the other. It's both as a collective who can change things in games to slow down momentum. You look at what Brisbane Lions do.

128.92 - 145.787 Luke Hodge

They either go into a ball movement where they just shut it down. They still move the ball, but it's a composed manner, and everyone on that football field knows exactly what they have to do. If you look at the Cats, they'll free up Tommy Stewart, a leader in the back line, to be able to control and understand. As soon as you see Tommy by himself down back, they know let's just slow things down.

146.969 - 168.717 Luke Hodge

You watch Carlton week in, week out, and you struggle to see a change, a structure, even a mindset from the players to be able to – understand the trends on when to just go slow. Their game style doesn't seem to change a hell of a lot. And what it did take on the weekend was a coach at halftime to absolutely rip them from to get a response. And this is round nine.

168.933 - 184.524 Luke Hodge

You can't leave a coach to have to do that every time for you to get a response. So, look, they've got now – and what you'll see, and this is what frustrates, I guess, supporters is what you're going to see over the next few weeks is more than likely players go out and feel the shackles have been released and they're going to go and take risks. They're going to switch the ball.

184.544 - 206.472 Luke Hodge

They're going to open up everything that you've been asking Carlton to do since their prelim in 2023. Yeah. You'll finally see that, but too little too late for Vossian. It's a tease for the next coach coming through of what they can have. The next big question there for it is, talking about leaders, is who stays and who goes? So you look at the change that King made when he came into Melbourne.

Chapter 3: What tactical changes does Carlton need to implement for success?

351.272 - 364.111 Luke Hodge

So he did it at Collingwood and they got a premiership a couple of years later when obviously moved on Buckley and got McRae. This is another chance for Graeme Wright to try and, I guess, get a bit of stability with that football club, something they have not had for a number of years.

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365.272 - 374.085 Gerard Whateley

One of the triggers from the press conference the other night, Prit Jhuri is having heard Vossi and then what was likely to happen next.

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374.065 - 391.487 Luke Hodge

Yeah, when he said, because someone questioned him about the future of him and he goes, I'm not coaching for myself. And the quote he said was, by the time I leave here, we've got to have winning behaviours and that it's clearly that they all understand what that is. And then he obviously steps down a couple of days later.

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391.507 - 406.708 Luke Hodge

So there's no doubt there was conversations and he's probably gone back and and had, is there any future with it? Because the football they played in that third quarter, I'm like, well, how do they score their goals? I went and looked at them. They had a contest in the forward half. So Brisbane Lions are known for intercept marking and transition in the ball.

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407.149 - 424.153 Luke Hodge

They had a fight in the forward half to bring it to ground. They put them under pressure. They turned the ball over and they were able to score. That's a good style of football when you're coming up against the reigning premiers. So clearly they've sort of sat back and gone, well, we did look the okay. But once the writing's on the wall, it's part ways. I think they've done the right thing. Yeah.

424.133 - 441.265 Luke Hodge

But for the coaches coming in, there's going to be a lot of tough decisions that they're going to have to make at that football club to change the trend. What if they had seven coaches in 20 years? Change the trend. It might mean there's a few unhappy supporters, a few unhappy players. But time heals wounds if it's the right decisions to make.

441.481 - 448.292 Gerard Whateley

What do you think the senior players are feeling today, having lived through it numerous times now from Patrick Cripps down?

448.692 - 460.671 Luke Hodge

Well, you heard Wiedering on your show last week that he knew it was coming, just the fact that he'd been through it three times prior. And it's the same thing. They're optimistic that...

Chapter 4: How can Carlton's leadership structure impact team performance?

460.651 - 474.995 Luke Hodge

the new coach will come in and be able to make some changes because they're sick of being down the bottom. Three years ago, they had a taste of a prelim final. I was sitting at that game. They should have won that game. They should have been seven or eight, nine goals up a quarter time, apart from Harris Andrews got in the way and they just kept bombing it away.

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475.075 - 490.682 Luke Hodge

But they felt that they were close. And a lot of them don't have many years left. So they're optimistic that if a new coach comes in, there is change. You can see what... What Bevo did when he got to Bulldogs, they won a flag straight away. You could see when Fly got into the job, they won a flag.

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491.844 - 499.618 Luke Hodge

What King's been able to do at Melbourne, there's that hope, the optimism that we might be able to turn this around quickly. But yeah, some big decisions have to be made.

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499.717 - 519.953 Gerard Whateley

And 14 games to play, so it's a long time to be in caretaker mode. The first half of the season is historically, it's rare. Carlton are the team who does it more regularly than most. What can you get out of such a long period of time under caretaker management?

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519.933 - 536.763 Luke Hodge

Well, this is where you identify what the real good teams are doing. And do we have the list to play like that? So you look at what Sydney, the Ford Hamble, I know Brisbane probably go against that trend with their composed mark, but anything that the top three or four teams are doing that you're going to try and implement next year or a new coach should implement, change it up.

537.444 - 554.897 Luke Hodge

The defensive structure, as we've said, I need a little bit of work on that with when to slow teams down. So that would be the things I'll be working on. Forward handball, moving the ball, giving your small forwards an opportunity to win a contest 1v1 rather than slow ball movement that... you've got to go through a team of defence.

554.917 - 566.916 Luke Hodge

So they'll be the things that I'll be looking at to try and implement in the last half, knowing that I think it's Josh Frazier who's taken it over. He's probably not going to get this role because they need to look outside the culture of Carlton. They did it with Teagan. That didn't last two years.

567.777 - 580.416 Luke Hodge

So he knows that his role over the next 13, 14 weeks will be just trying to show the areas of this football club that are going to stand up in the future football. Not so much of what they've been able to do in the past. It's all focused on the future.

580.835 - 593.389 Gerard Whateley

And the Voss legacy as a coach. So he had five seasons at the Brisbane Lions and five seasons at Carlton. Champion player, great leader, not a good coach.

Chapter 5: What are the challenges faced by senior players during coaching changes?

803.092 - 821.119 Luke Hodge

Can understand why he made some of those mistakes. And he's human. He's allowed to do that. On the flip side, the second best player is a 38-year-old. He's been in the top couple of their highest rating the last two games that he's played. If he played against Hawthorne in that drawed game, I reckon he does enough to get them over the line.

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821.139 - 838.437 Luke Hodge

So I think that's their biggest issue for me is the two guys. One's a young up-and-comer who's going to get tagged the whole time. The next one is a bloke who has played in the first three games, averaged about 50% game time just to get him through because his body's older, get him into it. And then he's playing more game time these days because he's got a five-day break, a six-day break.

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839.778 - 850.07 Luke Hodge

Where's the next up-and-comer? I know they've got Anderson, who I really like the look of, 23-year-old coming through. Um, but where are the next couple to go out a good game on the weekend? But I just don't see enough from that next group to really push in.

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850.611 - 867.714 Luke Hodge

Pendlebury at the age of 38 should be playing a sideshow, should be coming in just like he did in the opening, in opening round, coming off the bench, playing 50, 60%, having an impact where he can with his understanding in tight games, he should be on the field directing people because that's what he's there for. Um, but I feel like they've got such a strong reliance on, on one of the greats.

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867.895 - 871.7 Gerard Whateley

Where do you, so where are they in the scheme of things do you think?

871.72 - 889.583 Luke Hodge

Uh, Because of their maturity, I feel they're smart enough to win enough close games to get them in the playoff rank, the wild card. I reckon they're sitting around those. Anywhere from 7 to 10, maybe 11 is probably where I've got them factored at the moment. And

889.563 - 906.439 Luke Hodge

Is that the mindset that they're working, knowing that they're not going to win a premiership, it's been touted a few times, is that's why they're being selective on when they rest Scotty and make sure they get him to that milestone game. But I feel that they probably don't have enough depth in there to be able to push those top teams, the Brisbane's, the City, when they're full of fight.

906.86 - 910.407 Gerard Whateley

And what happens next? What's their trajectory, do you think?

910.775 - 928.256 Luke Hodge

Well, I felt they let go of my check last year because they were hoping to bring in, they needed some cash, they needed a forward spot. So I felt that they didn't chase after my check because they were hoping that Ben King was going to be available, which now that's fallen because I think he's just now put pen to paper to stay up there. Is the next one a Jed Walter or something else?

Chapter 6: How does the media influence coaching decisions in AFL?

1082.113 - 1091.632 Gerard Whateley

Yeah. Faggs said on the weekend that Ryan Lester's move to halfback was always your idea. And then when he did it, he thought, oh, you were right all along.

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1092.073 - 1110.205 Luke Hodge

I don't think I can take full credit. He's given you full credit over and over. I think when you sit back, I used to talk with Faggs daily, just on different things, things we could try. Tried a lot of things and they didn't work. I always liked the fact that When you go to a new football club, you've got those culture pieces that just sum up the football club.

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1110.425 - 1133.161 Luke Hodge

At Brisbane, it was Darcy Gardner and Ryan Lester, two blokes that if you're going to sum up a culture, a football club, that what you want young kids to be like coming through, polite, aggressive, competitive. but just a good person. They were the two blokes that summed up for Brisbane when I first got there. And because he was so athletic, he was on the wing, he was half-foot, played down back.

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1133.202 - 1145.947 Luke Hodge

And I think what you do need in a back line with young kids is you need trust, you need communication. And Froggy sums up both of those. So I think they gave him a shot down there and he turned out to be all right. And then... COVID year was when he really stood out.

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1146.468 - 1167.345 Luke Hodge

Getting Birchall back there, getting Ryan Lester to have those two as the key defensive pillars while Harris Andrews was still listening was what really set him up there. And he hasn't looked back since. I think he's been exceptional. And for a fellow who's been on one-year deals the whole time, I don't think that's going to change. I think he likes it that way, playing on edge. But

1167.325 - 1185.317 Luke Hodge

Couldn't speak more highly of a selfless person like Ryan Liss. I'm glad that he's playing the football that he is. And I was shattered that Lockie Neal stole the medal off him last week because I thought he was in a prime position to take that. For a bloke who gets no outside noise, I would have loved to see them present it because I can tell you what, there would have been –

1185.297 - 1195.671 Luke Hodge

what's it, 30,000 people at the Gabba, that every one of them would have been cheering like there's no tomorrow because they all love Frog just as much as their teammates and coaches do. Yeah. Lucky didn't need another medal.

1195.691 - 1195.951 Gerard Whateley

He didn't.

1195.971 - 1216.334 Luke Hodge

He's got enough. He was just put in there with the other 27 that he's got. Gabba, Thursday night? Yes, big game. The grand final rematch. The last couple of times, bring a jacket. Last couple of times they've played up there, these two teams. It's absolutely poured down. So I don't think the weather is looking that bad, but we just never know. All right. See you at the Gabba. Sounds good, Jared.

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