There’s no real “aura” about him. There’s no corporate speak. There are no vows to “lean into it”, to “own it”, or to “make Carlton great again”. There’s just the most low-key of locums, a very un-Carlton-like figure, a man who’s done the hard slog of coaching at the lower levels, who’s been able to mend what was a demoralised group. And there are a lot of wins. There’s a solid body of evidence that Josh Fraser knows what he’s doing, that his players are responding to him and that he’s the right man for the job. Whoever gets the nod, given the young talent on display on the weekend in a 76-point demolition of the reigning premiers Brisbane, it will be a good job to get.
Still, prior to the weekend’s 24.10 (154) to 11.12 (78) win, few had Carlton pegged as anything more than a lower middle-class team – honest and vastly improved under their new coach yes, but probably no threat to the higher echelon of the competition. But their performance against Brisbane is probably as well as they’ve played since the opening round of the 2024 season, when they mowed down the Lions at the Gabba in one of the biggest comebacks in the history of the game. On Saturday they posted their biggest score since August 2012 when they walloped an Essendon team that started the season well but fell in a heap after Stephen Dank’s peptides wore off. Carlton being Carlton, they then sacked Brett Ratten 12 days later.
