Champion Data's area of concern Carlton must address in 2025

Champion Data’s Daniel Hoyne has outlined the area of concern he hopes Carlton has addressed over summer.

The Blues ranked in the bottom five for defending stoppages in 2024, something that ultimately proved costly for them in many games.

Carlton has reshaped its defensive group this season, with Jack Silvagni, Nick Haynes and Ollie Hollands the new faces, while Brodie Kemp has been moved forward.

“The early rounds of this season, we are looking to see whether or not teams have gone to work on some areas of concern from the previous season,” Hoyne told SEN’s Sportsday.

“And the only thing that I think we will be looking at with Carlton in the first four to six weeks is their defensive system and in particular how they defend stoppages.

“As I’ve said to you guys for the last couple of years, you’re relying on individual talent more than you are system (when defending stoppages) as opposed to defending turnovers.

“So, if you lose that stoppage situation, you’re basically defending for your life for 10 to 15 seconds where they’re relying on you as an individual to hold up until the defensive system can come in.

“How Carlton defended that aspect of the game last year was bottom five and that was the reason why, along with injuries, but that was the reason why from an overall performance perspective they went from second at Round 19 to barely scraping through to make finals.

“Their full ground defensive system last year once everyone could actually come in and support the individuals behind the footy was actually fine, but just being able to hold up one-on-one as an individual outside of Weitering was a significant concern for Carlton last year.

“Clearly they have gone to work on the individual side of things. It looks like Jack Silvagni is going to play behind the footy, they’ve brought in Nick Haynes – it will be interesting to see whether or not he can actually get back to his best footy three or four years ago.

“Lachie Cowan looks like he’s going to be given a bit more responsibility if the practice matches are anything to go off, clearly Nic Newman is a big loss behind the ball – so how they rejig this back six or seven is going to be interesting and something to keep an eye on against Richmond, but then their draw gets a bit more challenging.”

After facing the Tigers in Round 1 on Thursday night, the Blues will then take on Hawthorn and Collingwood in the following two weeks.