Carlton coach Michael Voss adamant Blues will not trade Charlie Curnow

Curnow is one of the biggest names ahead of the AFL’s trade period given his determination to move to a club where he can enjoy a better work-life balance.

He is keen to surf with mates as well as play football and while the Gold Coast is not interested, Sydney remains desperate to lure him north.

But Voss told the club’s website that coaches like Sydney’s Dean Cox might as well skip the coffee dates given Carlton’s hard line stance on keeping their star.

Tom De Koning and Jack Silvagni have already told the club they will depart as free agents, while Carlton has told Elijah Hollands he should try to find a third home in coming weeks.

But Voss sounded resolute when he said Carlton was desperate to keep Curnow and get him back to his Coleman Medal best.

“What I will say is that decisions we will make moving forward will be with Carlton first in mind. There has been a lot of commentary (on Curnow) but we are pretty clear where it stands,” he said.

“That is that he will be playing for Carlton in 2026. So I can probably save a coffee for other coaches and confirm that he will be here. He’s really important to us.

“It is acknowledged amongst all the boys that we have had a challenging year.

“Charlie himself has had a really challenging year. He probably didn’t get going in the pre-season for one reason or another, a lot of that out of his control. Not much he could do but probably missing Harry (McKay) for most of the year didn’t help in terms of having that person beside him, that partnership all the time.”

The Blues eventually rolled more than 20 players through their forward line in a desperate attempt to find the right mix but injuries and form prevented them from getting any cohesion.

“We would have liked that stability there with Kempy (Brodie Kemp) and we were waiting for the emergence of Huddo (Hudson O’Keeffe) and we had a big mix down there. We couldn’t settle on the combination down there but there seems to be an appetite to be able to raise a lot of our players names when it comes to a trade and that is clearly their right to do that but it’s also our right to say that they are important payers to use and they will continue to be Carlton people.”

Voss said he loved Sam Walsh’s recent comment to Fox Footy’s Cam Mooney that players needed to have a “no bull**** mentality” and carry on with the job at hand despite the outside distractions.

“I love that. I said to him the other day whether it was instinctive or otherwise, we are stronger together. ‘No BS’, I like that, it’s simple and effective and should be our catch phrase going forwards.

“I think what he was referring to is let’s worry about what we can control, not about other things.

“What our program looks like, how do we get us right, what makes us play well.

“Another phrase is focus on what matters, and so Walshy being able to say it in such a succinct way is what we want to be about moving forward.”

Voss made clear the Blues were not happy with Hollands’ off-field behaviour this year in a season where he took time off for personal issues.

“Yeah, that’s correct,” he told SEN.

“That discussion was: ‘It’s up to you to look around and find out does another place suit you?”

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“That is a discussion we had with him. He is clear on where we stand with him and it’s up to him to be able to go explore those options and what they look like. Absolutely, we have been a little bit disappointed with how it has transpired across the year.

“He’s been quite an important player to us and over the course of the previous year he had a real influence on the way we played but they year hasn’t gone the way we wanted and the conversation was if there is another place which will get the best out of you this is the time to go look for that.

“He is a contracted player so he’s got a year to run on his contract so we will pick that up when we need to.”