Patrick Cripps is Noah’s favourite player, within a matter of hours he had sent this video to @PruWillisGeorge. The fan power of the Carlton community is amazing & I’m so grateful to the Cripps’ family for making this happen for Noah & his family. My best moment on this account.

Tom De Koning on Channel 9 with Trent Kniese On his future: “Yeah, I love Carlton. You know, it's a group that I've grown up playing with. I've been here obviously since I got drafted and yeah, I feel like I've played a lot of footy with the boys now and we're really building that connection.” On the speculation: “There's a lot of talk but yeah, it's good. Probably good not to read into it and I don't read into that sort of stuff. I leave that for my manager.” On preseason & open training: “Yeah, got a really big crowd out here on Saturday and had a really big session to finish off the pre season. And now looking forward to playing some games in Yarraville.”

Interview: De Koning speaks at Team Photo Day (Ch9) Tom De Koning caught up exclusively with 9 News Melbourne to discuss what's to come.

Riley Beveridge - Why Blues are confident star ruck will stay amid rival interest: CARLTON remains confident star ruck Tom De Koning will ignore multi-million dollar free agency offers elsewhere and will commit his long-term future to the club. De Koning enters the 2025 season as one of the competition's most sought-after free agents, having exploded into contention among the League's best young rucks following a stellar last season. Having turned down interest from Geelong, St Kilda and Sydney two years ago to commit through to free agency with the Blues, De Koning is now set to attract offers well in excess of $1 million per season to leave at year's end. Carlton is unlikely to be able to match the financial sums being offered elsewhere for De Koning, though Blues coach Michael Voss declared himself confident in the club's culture and direction being enough to sway the 25-year-old to stay. "I am (confident)," Voss told AFL at Ikon Park this week. "What our job is to do is to provide the best environment we possibly can for any player. You back it in. What I've seen, particularly over the last 12 months, is that Tom has really come on as a player. "Before that – and I've had these conversations with him – he was pretty inconsistent. He was good sometimes and not good at others. He's been able to build that durability that you need, that resilience to be able to play ruck. It's not as simple as being able to roll out there week after week and be involved in 90 contests. He's been able to develop that over a period of time. "But when you can look at a player and they look happy and they like where they are, I reckon it tells you a lot. He looks like that. He looks like a player playing with great energy, he looks like he's playing really free. "When the time comes where we need to have that conversation, we'll have it. But I've been really impressed with his pre-season. He's doubled down on a lot of areas he needed to work on in his game and he's raring to go." Carlton is wary of rival interest in De Koning, as well as lucrative figures potentially being a distraction, though Voss has not yet felt any need to chat with his talented young ruck about where his focus should lie heading into the 2025 campaign. "I haven't felt an urgency to do it," Voss said. "I'm trying to have these conversations with players all the time around where they're at. One of the really important factors you can't ignore is contract status. Whether that's a player that's just hanging on by his fingernails and needs to know what that status looks like, or whether that's a player who is more prominent and might have interest from other people, you try to give them surety where they need it and try to give them clarity where they need it. "You try and get an understanding of where they're at in their football and what they want out of football. Then, what you do is in your environment you try and back it in as best as you possibly can. Through that, you convince them that this is the best place for them to be. Hopefully, we can do that." Carlton was relatively quiet in the trade and free agency space last season, only acquiring experienced defender Nick Haynes while parting with Matt Kennedy to the Western Bulldogs and Matt Owies to West Coast. Kennedy and Owies were two of only six Blues to feature in 23 or more games last year, while Nic Newman, another to do so, will miss the entire season with a knee injury. But the club moved up the draft order to snag gun midfielder Jagga Smith at pick No.3, with Voss confident in his side's youngsters and its strength in depth being able to make the step up this season. "It's always a fine balance between the more experienced players and then what we feel like is coming underneath. That's been the evolution of our list," Voss said. "When I first walked in, I felt like we were over-indexed in inside midfielders. They were everywhere. That's been a real plus on our list, but at the same time we had to work out what we wanted our list to look like and where the game was going. "We've had to spend a fair bit of time on what is the capacity of our group and what does it actually need to look like? We've spent a bit of time on that. What we've also spent time on is then what's coming through next. "Making tough decisions like that on the guys that you just spoke about, it was believing that we have another group that's about to come through and that we're willing to give exposure to. Is that depth? I'm not sure. But it certainly says that we feel like some of them are ready to go. "They've probably had their grounding, now they're ready for AFL football. Hopefully, they provide the depth that we need."

Peter Ryan - Last men standing: Practice match performances to decide final list spots: Former Geelong and Port Adelaide forward Francis Evans has impressed Carlton officials enough during his pre-season with their VFL team to become a wildcard consideration to fill the club’s vacant list spot via the pre-season supplemental selection period. The Blues have several candidates under their nose as they weigh up whether to make an SSP selection ahead of the February 21 deadline, including official train-on players Liam McMahon and Denver Grainger-Barras alongside VFL-listed players Will White and Ethan Phillips. With injured defender Nic Newman not officially ruled out for the season and Matt Carroll already added as an SSP selection, the Blues have one vacancy on their list and are expected to consider all options during the match simulation matches next weekend before making their decision.

Charlie Curnow with Xander McGuire: On his weekend scare: “Look it was nothing in the end, so the boys been giving me a bit of a bit of a hard time over it, saying I've been going in for a phantom scan.” On preseason & Round 1: “I'm getting a lot of training loads in, so it's whether you want to play a scratch match or do heaps of training loads. It's up to the medical staff to decide that at this point. But yeah, all on track for round one, which will be good.” On off the ground pursuits with brother Ed: “We do massages and facials, skin consultants as I've been learning all about this stuff at the same time. So it's been really fun down in Torquay there. Big Lachie Fogarty, he's been asking a lot about the facial situation.”

Interview: Charlie provides update on Round 1 goals (Ch7) After a reported injury scare during open training, Charlie Curnow spoke to Channel 7 about his body, his 2025 outlook and life away from football.

@CarltonFC Big Year Ahead

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