John Barker’s first major task as interim Carlton coach will be extracting maximum effort from the battered Blues, a quality which has been notably lacking in their sorry start to the season.
Three days after record-breaking coach Mick Malthouse was sacked following a very public falling-out with the Carlton board and executive, the bottom-placed Blues take on Sydney at the SCG on Friday night.
To make a daunting task even tougher, they did so without two of their few top-line midfielders in Chris Judd and Bryce Gibbs, who are both unavailable due to injury.
For Barker – who is set to be among the candidates to replace Malthouse on a permanent basis from 2016 onwards – the message to the players was simple.
“We know that there have been some issues with our effort and we know it’s one of the core components of footy,” Barker said before the match.
“It’s really just to drive some spirit and some energy back into the place … we don’t think things are going to turn around overnight.
“We’re realistic about that and we know that the top effort that we’re talking about, we need to work at it and that will take time.”
40-year-old Barker, who joined the Carlton coaching staff in 2011. Before that he played 168 senior matches for Hawthorn, Fitzroy and Brisbane.
Source: AAP