‘Not something we’d do’: Blues puzzled by rival coach’s ‘unusual’ move as major trade gathers steam

Carlton coach Michael Voss says if he’d have met with a potential free agent acquisition with four rounds left in the home and away season, he wouldn’t have announced it publicly.

Voss’ comments come three days after Collingwood counterpart Craig McRae confirmed he’d caught up with Jack Silvagni – and cheekily suggested he’d happily go on a “second date” with him – as the Blues free agent weighs up his footy future.

Unsigned beyond this season, Silvagni has four-year offers on the table from both the Blues and Magpies.

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When asked on Wednesday whether he’d recently met with Silvagni, McRae confirmed to reporters he had, further fuelling momentum of a shock Silvagni move to cross-town rivals Collingwood.

Silvagni isn’t the only free agent this year whose meeting with a rival club has been revealed – although Hawthorn coach Sam Mitchell didn’t announce or confirm his catch-up with Eagles captain Oscar Allen, rather that was reported first via the media.

Asked how he felt about McRae’s admission, Voss told reporters in Perth on Saturday: “Everyone will sit quite different on this, won’t they?

“Where I sit very much is respecting the privacy of the player. I guess it’s not for me to announce something like that on behalf of someone, because they’re the ones that have got to walk back into the locker room.

“I can’t speak to how other coaches will go about that, but what I can say is how we would go about it – and I guess in that instance, we’d choose not to make that sort of announcement. I don’t feel like that’s our role to do that.

“While I didn’t necessarily read all the headlines around Oscar (Allen), I believe he came under a fair bit of heat – and I think that’s probably a very good reason why we just temper the reason to do that.”

Collingwood’s strong interest in Silvagni means the defender might’ve played his last game for Carlton, with Voss confirming his player was likely to miss the rest of the season due to groin issues.

“Unfortunately it’s taken a fair bit of time for him to be able to recover from those groins and it’s been a very slow recovery process,” Voss said.

“Jack’s had a really important role shift this year. It’s been a real win for us to see where he’s gone from forward to back.

“I want to be really clear: He’s a very important player for us. We value what he’s done, we value him at the football club and we’re certainly hoping he plays out the rest of his career with us.”

Voss said he didn’t feel the need to contact McRae – a Lions premiership teammate – about the meeting with Silvagni.

Asked how he’d addressed the meeting with Silvagni, Voss said: “I was surprised, but obviously I’d already spoken to Jack about what was happening. It’s unusual for a coach to announce something like that.

“Regardless of what Craig did, it’s not something we would do and we’ll respect the privacy of the player.”

Voss said any player in the same situation “has the right” to meet with other clubs, adding: “We hope the decision at the end of the day is he’ll be with us.”

While Silvagni hasn’t officially been ruled out for the season yet, star forward Charlie Curnow has been after undergoing a necessary clean-up of his knee.

“He needed it … He obviously pulled up quite sore from last week’s game,” Voss said.

“As the week went, it wasn’t settling, so we investigated it. He wasn’t going to play another game, he needed effectively four to six weeks off, so given the time frame of the season, the obvious thing to do was to send him in for an operation.”

The Blues will attempt to salvage some late-season respect when they take on Fremantle at Optus Stadium on Sunday.

“It’s going to be hard yakka,” Voss said.

“They’ve obviously spoken about the type of football they want to play. They pride themselves on real contest and pressure … it’s something we’d love to be able to bring ourselves. You’ve almost got no choice to get your hands dirty in these games.”