Jacob Weitering in unwanted injury development for Carlton ahead of new AFL season

Jacob Weitering is set to miss at least the first two rounds of the AFL season, with the Carlton Blues star providing an update on his calf on Tuesday. The 26-year-old has had an interrupted pre-season, and spoke to 7News on Tuesday night about when he should be expected back.

The big man admitted he might not play at all in March, and will definitely miss the first two rounds. “I’ll slowly transition hopefully in the next few weeks to some more on-ground (training) stuff," he said. "I guess the timeline is 6-8 weeks and hopefully we can nail that."

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But the Blues have a bye in round two, meaning Weitering might only miss one game. The vice-captain has remained active during the injury layoff, helping mentor some of the younger players at the club.

“I wanted to stay as present as possible, and some coaching opportunities were available," he said. "Defence is a big part of what I do, and I wanted to help out as much as I can."

The Blues have been tipped as premiership favourites in 2024 after they lost to Brisbane in the preliminary final last year. “It’s a prelim, and it’s a loss, and it does hurt a little bit," Weitering said. "But it’s a new season, we start on zero points and the boys will be pretty motivated to go and get a job done.”

Charlie Curnow confident of bounce back after disappointing finals

Weitering is one of three vice-captains at Carlton this year, working alongside skipper Patrick Cripps. Charlie Curnow is one of the other deputies, and is confident of bouncing back after an underwhelming finals campaign.

Curnow was well below his best in all of Carlton's three finals games in 2023, kicking a total of three goals and having limited influence across the ground. But the dual reigning Coleman medallist has not dwelled too much on his disappointing post-season output, vowing to make amends in 2024.

"It was a different ball game," Curnow said last week about his first AFL finals series. "I didn't perform as well as what I would like to in the end but that's probably the nature of our game, I get to have another crack at it this year. I'm looking forward to playing with our forward line as a unit, and attack hopefully another finals series."

Curnow, who dealt with a number of serious injury issues early in his career, didn't play at all between mid-2019 and the end of the 2021 season. The issues with his body appear to be behind him after playing in all of Carlton's 48 games over the past two seasons.

The star forward could become the first AFL player since Gary Ablett Sr (in 1993-95) to win three-straight Coleman medals. Curnow said he had not even considered claiming another goal-kicking award until it was mentioned to him. "Hopefully the flag, that'd be ideal," he said.

Cripps reckons Curnow will enliven the leadership group with his energy in 2024. "It's amazing what he's done and what he's achieved in the two years since the long injury lay-off," the captain said. "He's infectious, he brings people together and when he talks, people listen."

Cripps said he is far from satisfied with what Carlton achieved in 2023, despite breaking a finals drought. "We celebrated the year for what it was because the middle part of the year, compared to where we got to, you've got to celebrate that," he said.

"When you do lose and don't get your end goal there still is that determination to go a few steps further. We've got the platform to attack it. We worked that out mid-last year when we're 15th on the ladder, we're lucky this year it's an even playing field."

with AAP

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