Upon being appointed as coach following the sacking of Brett Ratten at the end of the 2012 season, Mick Malthouse was expected by many to lead the Carlton Football Club to its 17th AFL premiership.
Following weeks of speculation in the wake of the club’s poor second half of the season, which included a humiliating 12-point loss to the Gold Coast Suns in the penultimate round, Malthouse’s appointment as Blues coach on September 11, 2012, was met with much fanfare.
He had spent a season out of coaching after a successful 12-year coaching stint at Collingwood, which produced the 2010 premiership from the five grand finals (including the 2010 draw) the Pies qualified for under his leadership.
At the time, many believed Malthouse was the man who was capable of doing what his predecessor Ratten couldn’t and that was to deliver Carlton its first premiership since 1995 while their window was still open, despite the club failing to make the finals in 2012 when they were widely expected to finish in the top four.
After finishing 10th that season, the Blues didn’t appear to improve under Malthouse’s coaching, finishing ninth on the ladder before being gifted the top eight berth which was vacated by Essendon’s banishment from the finals series as a result of irregularities being exposed in their supplements program.
The wildcard handed to the club saw the Blues thrust into an elimination final against Richmond, which was to be played in front of a crowd of 94,690, the highest ever crowd for an elimination final.
After the Blues defeated the Tigers by 20 points, a result which saw Mick Malthouse become the most successful finals coach in history, the club then fell to a 24-point loss to reigning premiers the Sydney Swans in the semi-finals.
However, that would be as good as it got for Carlton under Mick Malthouse.
More high expectations arose for the 2014 season with the off-season acquisition of Dale Thomas, who under the coaching of Malthouse featured in Collingwood’s 2010 premiership, through the free agency system.
Instead, the club was forced to play catch-up for the rest of the year after losing their first four matches, eventually stumbling to a 13th place finish with just seven wins and one draw for the season, their worst return since 2007.
After a loss to GWS in Round 14 last season, I suggested that the Blues appeared to be going backwards under the coaching of Malthouse.
Their poor start to this season, in which they have won just one match so far (against St Kilda in Round 4), has seen him removed from his post after two-and-a-half relatively unsuccessful seasons at Princes Park.
After the club’s 69-point loss to West Coast at Domain Stadium in Round 2, the Carlton board conceded that they were in a rebuilding phase, and five rounds later the club would crash to the bottom of the ladder for the first time since 2006.
The mounting losses then led to speculation around the future of Mick Malthouse being raised in the media, especially as he was to come out of contract at the end of this season.
A pair of losses to the GWS Giants and Geelong Cats by 78 and 77 points respectively, as well as a nine-point loss to the previously winless Brisbane Lions in Round 6, highlighted the pressure that Malthouse was under to keep his job.
The final straw came on Tuesday morning when he went on Melbourne radio station SEN attacking the club board’s decision to discuss his future during the Round 11 bye, despite president Mark LoGiudice repeatedly reiterating in recent weeks that the veteran coach would see out his contract to the end of the season.
It was this interview which prompted the board to inform Malthouse that his services would no longer be required, bringing to an end an era in which a lot was expected, yet delivered so little.
The 61-year-old has conceded that he will no longer coach in the AFL, which means the curtain has all but drawn on the longest coaching journey in the game’s history which started with Footscray all the way back in 1984.
It would be at the West Coast Eagles (1990-1999) and Collingwood (2000-2011) where he would enjoy the vast majority of his successes, leading these sides to three premierships (two for the Eagles and one for the Pies).
It was during his time at the Eagles where he got the best out of star players including captains John Worsfold and Guy McKenna, the late Chris Mainwaring, Glen Jakovich, Ashley McIntosh, Fraser Gehrig and Ben Cousins, among others.
In 2000 he took over as coach of Collingwood and while his first season there saw the club finish second-last, he would take the side into consecutive grand finals against the Brisbane Lions in 2002 and 2003, falling short on both occasions.
After seven long years, Malthouse would take the Pies to the 2010 grand final against St Kilda, and after the initial match ended in a draw, he would oversee the club’s first premiership since 1990 with a 56-point win in the replay.
The 2011 season, which was to be his final year before handing the reins to Nathan Buckley, saw the club once again reach the grand final, but were denied a repeat premiership by a Geelong side which defeated them three times that year, including in the match that mattered the most.
Malthouse was supposed to remain at the club as a coaching director to Buckley, but instead decided to pursue a commentary role with the Seven Network for the 2012 season.
Then, the Carlton Football Club furiously chased his signature as speculation mounted on the future of then-coach Brett Ratten, and while they got their man, for the two-and-a-half years he was in charge the club could not achieve the success that it craved, and that was what has resulted in his dismissal as Carlton coach.
Assistant coach John Barker will now take the head coaching reins on a caretaker basis until the end of the season, after which the club will begin its search to find his permanent replacement.
It will now remain to be seen whether the Blues can lift ahead of their trip to the SCG where they will face the red hot Sydney Swans this Friday night.
The bookies have shown the Blues no mercy, installing the Swans as red hot favourites not only to continue their own impressive start to the 2015 season, but also to heap more misery on the beleaguered club.
With the curtain having now drawn on the ill-fated Mick Malthouse era at Carlton, it will now also remain to be seen who they will chase as his successor, with former West Coast Eagles coach John Worsfold considered a strong chance.
Who do you think should coach the Carlton Football Club in 2016? Please leave your suggestions below.
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