None of Sam Walsh, Jacob Weitering, Jack Martin, Jesse Motlop or Caleb Marchbank will play for Carlton against last year’s runners-up Brisbane, with only Motlop a chance to be back for Thursday week’s round one showdown against Richmond.

The Tigers, too, seem as good as certain to lose their “round zero” opener with former coach Damien Hardwick’s new side Gold Coast, with Tom Lynch, Dustin Martin, Toby Nankervis and Jack Graham all out.

Former AFL coach Rodney Eade told this masthead there could be major repercussions for the loser of that Carlton-Richmond showdown.

“Whoever loses that will be 0-2,” Eade said. “If Richmond lose, they probably won’t make the eight, and if Carlton lose that, could they miss the eight? My experience with individuals who miss a pre-season, or have injuries going in at the start of the year, is they don’t have good seasons.

Loading

“When you’re chasing fitness, you never catch up.”

There is an asterisk on the two-game rule, in that the worst teams are far more likely to be 0-2 and were already long odds to make finals.

However, cases such as Geelong last year, Port Adelaide in 2022 and Melbourne in 2019 present differently, after strong campaigns the season before.

“It’s a combination of reasons why. With Geelong, it was not a [lack of] confidence thing, so could they have been overconfident?” Eade said. “Injuries certainly played a part with the Cats last year, and there are a lot of injuries at the moment going into round zero or round one. We start the pre-season later now, so we’re losing three to four weeks and starting the season earlier, so we’re losing four to six weeks’ preparation time we had in the past, while asking players to be quicker and stronger.”

Weitering told SEN his “best-case” return date was the Blues’ round three game against North Melbourne on March 29, after Carlton have a round two bye – but he was optimistic his team would be “fine without me”.

“A lot of people have called our run last year some different names; it was pretty special to be part of,” Weitering said.

“Our next step is being consistent during the season. Our first year with ‘Vossy’ [coach Michael Voss], we were 8-2 going into the bye, and we didn’t make finals and had a pretty heartbreaking end, then we lost the prelim last year after everyone knows how our season panned out.

“The consistency in-season will hold us in good stead to hopefully get back to where we were.”

The Swans, like Carlton, are dealing with injuries to key players Callum Mills and Luke Parker and recruit Taylor Adams, making their scenario even more difficult.

Loading

Sydney host Melbourne in Thursday night’s season opener before heading to the MCG to lock horns with Collingwood. A tardy 3-6 beginning – albeit after a 2-0 start – meant the Swans had to scrap just to finish eighth in 2023, before losing an elimination final to the Blues.

Carlton last won the premiership in 1995, but there is renewed hope that drought could also be coming to an end soon after Voss’ men charged home last year to reach a preliminary final.

They already showed they can bounce back from adversity, having been 15th with four wins and a draw through 13 rounds a season ago – but they did not lose either of their first two games.