Momentum killed Michael Voss's coaching tenure at Carlton. On and off the field. His Blues were consistently unable to arrest the run-ons of opponents. And their mounting losses built an appetite for change which made his eventual departure not a matter of "if", but "when".
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Funnily enough, though, momentum was also at the heart of the good things Carlton did under Voss, most memorably in that amazing revival in 2023 when the Blues' season appeared shot to bits before they somehow ended up leading a preliminary final by five goals.
Carlton had been 15th on the ladder after 15 rounds before peeling off nine consecutive wins, then knocking over Sydney and Melbourne in nail-biting finals victories, and only losing that preliminary final narrowly to Brisbane at the Gabba.
That was a rollercoaster as breathtaking as modern AFL football has seen, and the euphoria the long-suffering Carlton army felt from it sustained Voss as the Blues' coach for at least a season-and-a-half longer than would have been the case had that 2023 season just petered out unspectacularly.
Perversely, though, the Blues did it in reverse the following year, winning 11 of 15 games to sit second on the ladder, before losing seven of their last nine to crash out of finals in week one.
Their statistical profiles under Voss were similarly scatty. In 2023, just before their revival, the Blues were strong defensively but chronically weak in attack, ranked fourth for defence but a dismal 15th for points scored.
Then, in 2024, that trend completely reversed. At its high point that season, Carlton was second for points scored but a miserable 13th for defence. And now, ominously, Carlton can't do either thing well, currently 16th for attack and 15th for defence.
More ominously, it looks increasingly like Voss's love of the contest and stoppage wins with his teams is becoming a bit of an anachronism thanks to rule changes like 'stand', '6-6-6' and 'last touch', which have helped make the game quicker and scoring significantly higher this season.
The teams scoring heaviest from turnover, Sydney, Brisbane, Fremantle and Hawthorn, are also leading the way on the ladder. Carlton's ranking is 16th. And the Blues' largely one-paced midfield group is looking even further off the pace in contrast with the genuine zip of their better-performed rivals.
For Voss, the writing has been on the wall for some time. And even Carlton's own statement post Voss's resignation as coach on Tuesday morning referenced his perceived failure to conjure the "intended evolution in our game".
Wisdom in hindsight will paint the Blues' decision to go ahead with Voss into the final year of his contract after the dismal nine-win 2025 it staggered through as a big mistake. But the Blues were in a sense fighting their own history on this issue.
So pilloried has this once powerhouse been for continual knee-jerk responses on the coaching front over the years that this time, if anything, for the sake of stability, they underreacted. And the "ifs", "buts" and "maybes" were a constant throughout the Voss years.
There's potential for that still to be the case now, too, if Carlton isn't careful.
I spoke in these pages last week of Carlton's conundrum in searching for a replacement for Voss whilst simultaneously establishing whether theirs is a senior list which can still contend or one which needs a major overhaul.
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And typically of this era with the Blues, there were stark contrasts even in the player movement sphere.
Last off-season, Carlton parted with some key players in Charlie Curnow, Tom De Koning and Jack Silvagni, which superficially signalled a changing of the guard. But the Blues' trading in of the likes of Ben Ainsworth, Will Hayward and Ollie Florent didn't exactly scream rebuild, but refurbishment.
What seems clearer now via comments from chief executive Graham Wright after Voss' resignation is that this Carlton administration is more inclined to shake up the list big time, and also more inclined to find a hungry assistant as the next senior coach rather than automatically gravitate towards one of the obvious "big names" currently available.
Making a beeline for the likes of John Longmire, Ken Hinkley, Nathan Buckley or Adam Simpson is what Carlton historically would almost certainly do, but the fashion around the appointment of new coaches has changed significantly in recent years thanks to the success of men who were relatively low in profile, like Craig McRae or Chris Fagan.
Wright, when he was at Collingwood, was integral to the appointment of McRae, which no one could argue hasn't been stunningly successful. It was a scenario involving a big, famous club looking beyond the allure of big names and simply making coaching acumen in an ever-changing landscape its single biggest priority.
Carlton has a decent chance now, thanks to Voss' mid-season resignation, to think long and hard about exactly the right approach to its list, and the right approach to finding the new man to sit in the coaching hot seat looking after it. And this time, they simply can't afford not to get it right.
