AFL 2026: Carlton will unveil new era against Sydney in Opening Round

The next generation of Blues will officially arrive on Thursday night.

Carlton will debut exciting youngsters Jagga Smith and Harry Dean, while there’s “nothing to suggest” defender Jacob Weitering won’t line up against Sydney.

Coach Michael Voss wouldn’t confirm Wade Derksen, Will Hayward, Ben Ainsworth and Ollie Florent as certain starters, but they all took to the training track on Tuesday morning.

Smith became one of the Blues’ pre-season highlights after dominating against Geelong a week ago.

Meanwhile Dean, according to Voss, will begin his “very long partnership” with Weitering on Carlton’s last line of defence.

“We do have a few debutants, it might surprise you the first one: Jagga actually got a game,” Voss said with a smile.

“We can confirm that one and the other one is Harry himself, two both great stories, obviously a father and son joining us and high draft pick.

“He’s really impressed so far in the exposure we’ve had with him and he’s going to draw a very long partnership with Weiters down there I am sure.

“Obviously Jagga, most people have seen him over the last couple of weeks and the impact he can have on games and probably how valuable he’ll be to us in the short term and long term.

“We’ve been watching that … he finally gets his first game, he’s a pretty excited man.”

Weitering sustained a fractured rib playing State of Origin last month and has been racing against the clock to be fit take on his former teammate Charlie Curnow.

The reliable defender has been through contact training but needs to get through an important Tuesday session to be selected.

“We’ve been stepping up his progression over the last two training sessions, so it’s just been a steady introduction of (full contact),” Voss said.

“This is probably the one where it becomes uncontrolled versus being controlled. We’ll wait and see – like I said, it’s all leaning towards the positive.

“There’s nothing to suggest its not going to go where he (isn’t) playing … but you’ve still got to make sure he gets through this particular training session.”

The Blues – through Smith and a rejuvenated Sam Walsh – moved the ball at speed in their tune-ups.

Voss says the evolved ball movement is trending correctly but expects a slew of mistakes in the first quarter on Thursday.

“They are certainly moving the needle in the right direction (and) finding those moments where to be really dynamic,” he said.

“Then also just knowing those times when to be composed. I would imagine this game in the first 30 minutes is going to be very fast.

“The mistakes would be quite high, I would imagine quite early, so how we settle into that is going to be very important.

“Ultimately now we want to see the transfer, have a more balanced game model. Everyone has got to be good at one thing, so we hope we bring that to the table but also have enough in the other phases of the game where we can do some damage.”