Carlton’s fadeouts will bury Voss. But the Blues and Cripps are chained to each other

In 2021, Patrick Cripps could have sought a move to West Coast or Fremantle as a free agent and returned to his home state. He chose to stay, signing a sizeable six-year contract that bound him to Carlton and made him an adored figure to the club’s vast, desperate following.

Judged on individual metrics, Cripps made the right call. He won Brownlow medals in 2022 and 2024, and doubtless has earned a few dollars more from the connections he garnered at a club with the most potent business network in the competition.

Today, as Carlton is mired in the bottom four and has repeatedly failed to hold leads in the second halves, the relationship between the Blues and their skipper is one that no longer benefits both parties as it did.

Once, Cripps was Carlton’s Atlas, the bearer of an astonishing burden. Or, he was their beacon.

Now, as the skipper’s output has declined and the game has moved decisively towards players with quick feet and slick disposal/decision-making – and away from pure extractors – the relationship between Cripps and the Blues is more akin to a pair of prisoners handcuffed to one another; he is not so much bound as cuffed to Carlton and they to him.

The 2026 model Cripps has limited currency in the marketplace even if either party wished for a parting of ways. Fremantle would struggle to find a spot for him, while West Coast would only covet him for leadership and guidance, if at all.

Would another club want him? Only if they had a fast fleet of Ferraris and, at 31, he is much less appealing than at 28.

Matt Kennedy was traded to the Bulldogs by the Blues, in what was – contrary to some moaning by fans – a necessity given that Carlton had an excess of midfielders who could not run swiftly, namely George Hewett, Adam Cerra and, not least, Cripps. Sam Walsh can provide outside run, but he isn’t Kozzie Pickett, either.

To close observers of the Blues, it has been apparent even in Cripps’ Brownlow seasons that their midfield was unbalanced; ideally, the skipper might have been surrounded by, say, a player of Pickett or Errol Gulden’s ilk, plus another with serious acceleration.

Cripps has been the best extractor of the football since Sam Mitchell’s retirement, although his hand skills were never as clean as the Hawthorn coach (Josh Kennedy of Sydney had claims, too). As with the energy market, clubs no longer invest as heavily in pure extraction; if offered the choice between those who can really run – quickly and constantly – and someone who can find the ball in congestion and distribute it, they will opt for the renewable (repeat) runners, especially if they can kick and be deployed at half-back or forward.

Cripps, for all his gallantry in the trenches, is not suited to stints at half-back, nor a reliable forward target. He is a ball-winning midfielder nonpareil and that’s about it.

Michael Voss and his fellow coaches cannot drop their skipper, which has meant that Hewett has been consigned to the VFL, despite taking the John Nicholls medal in 2025.

Cripps had one of his least effectual games as skipper on Saturday night, when he won just 14 disposals and five contested balls. He appeared in 24 centre bounces, his natural domain, yet won just two centre clearances.

During the third quarter, when the Blues were buried by the St Kilda avalanche, the skipper was in the square at bounces eight times.

Carlton’s inability to arrest or reverse the opposition’s momentum will bury Voss in due course. The coach, whatever his failings, has been lumbered, too, with a playing group bereft of leaders who can apply a hand break when the game is hurtling away from them.

Cripps, unlike Scott Pendlebury or Luke Hodge and Shaun Burgoyne in Hawthorn’s reign, cannot sit back behind the ball, calmly chip it to a teammate and provide direction for younger teammates when the tide is running against his team. He does have that downshifting gear or vision.

Given that Carlton and Cripps are likely chained to each other for the term of his natural football life – albeit he’s entitled to move after just one preliminary final (at the Gabbatoir) in 13 seasons – the Blues should, at the least, remove the burden of the captaincy from their dual Brownlow medallist for 2027.

Cripps has been unable to alter the trajectory of his club’s second halves. This is a shared responsibility, rather than his fault. Had he been surrounded by a different support cast, his strengths would be complementary, not the compounding of a weakness.

He is a player who has extracted everything, in both senses.

But the game has moved on, and the rudderless Blues must move accordingly.

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