Malthouse set to be sacked by Blues

Carlton coach Mick Malthouse is set to be sacked as Carlton coach on Tuesday after slamming the club’s board and chief executive Steven Trigg in an incendiary radio interview.

The Blues board was meeting on the club’s headquarters at Princes Park to decide how to end the stand-off with Malthouse.

President Mark LoGiudice had declared on Monday the club would make a call on Malthouse’s future in two weeks, prompting the most experienced coach in AFL history to take to SEN radio to slam the decision.

Malthouse insisted he would not resign, effectively daring the club to sack him.

“If people can judge me after 30 years, what’s two more weeks mean? That I lose it totally or gain more knowledge about it?” he said.

“There’s not a lot to gain by two weeks is there?

“I don’t really get it – if you don’t know about the person now, what does two weeks show?”

The move raised the stakes in a dramatic end-game for Malthouse, who is out of contract at the end of the year.

When asked whether he thought he would be reappointed to the coaching role, Malthouse gave a simple “No”.

Malthouse lamented that the coach was always the first to be sacrificed when boards needed to relieve pressure.

“Good boards stay sound. Boards crack under pressure, and the first thing that goes is the coach because it relieves a bit of the pressure,” the veteran coach said.

“They beat their chest because they’ve made a decision, and they move on.

“Very few of them ever work.”

In a startling admission, the embattled coach also said Trigg had spoken to him about appointing a caretaker coach mid-season, a concept he described as “damn ridiculous”.

“What do they get out of it, is it an ego trip or a pressure valve release? I don’t know,” he said.

Malthouse said he knew it would be an uphill battle to keep his job after the pair who brought him in – former chief executive Greg Swann and former president Stephen Kernahan – left the club last year.

But he was certain he had the backing of his players, some of whom he said felt alienated and “hung out on a limb” by the Blues’ mandate to rebuild its playing list.

“The day that I think the players aren’t responding … if that is the case that’s when you do stop coaching.”

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