“It took some soul searching”: Silvagni on a year that had everything
Jack Silvagni sums up a 2023 where he and the team endured the highs and lows.
Jack Silvagni experienced the annoyance. Above all, he comprehended it.
Following numerous false starts, 2023 appeared to be just another year destined to be discarded by Carlton. With a 4-1-8 record after 13 games, Carlton’s lowest point came from a loss to bitter rival Essendon, the side Silvagni’s Carlton club had their first victory over.
Things were familiar for years, but in 2023 something changed. Something distinct appeared.
After that, Blues fans throughout the world will never forget their team’s incredible ascent, which culminated in a run that began with the team in the bottom four and ended only one week before the Grand Final.
It was a campaign which Silvagni hopes lives long in the memory for Carlton fans everywhere, but more importantly, kickstarts something greater for all those with an affinity of the Navy Blue.
“It took some soul searching and some other things to find out what we wanted to be, and really align ourselves and find our identity. I’m sure as a Carlton fan, I know watching the finals was really exciting,” Silvagni told Carlton Media.
“To hear the crowd going berserk at a full MCG, there’s nothing quite like it.
“I know how the fans feel and how starved of success we were for a number of years. It has been a really lean period, so to return to finals footy and be able to impact them the way we did, the end result obviously wasn’t we would’ve liked but the boys played some outstanding footy.”
A knee injury sustained in Round 19 – and once again on his VFL return a month later – meant Silvagni was on the sidelines and unable to work his way back into the side for the team’s September run.
While there may not have been a recreation of the 15-year-old Silvagni’s celebration from Jeff Garlett kicking the sealer against Richmond in 2013 (“can you not put the vision in”, Silvagni pleads), he admitted he well and truly felt what all Bluebaggers were feeling when the full-time siren went at the MCG in the elimination and semi finals.
It was a far cry from the position the team and Silvagni himself were in back in June, with the Blues in the bottom four and Silvagni in the VFL after a personal run of form which he said embodied that of the team’s whole year.
“I would’ve loved to have been playing at the end, I tried my very best to get out there,” he said.
“My season rolled like the team’s, really — it was a different year for a number of reasons. I got dropped a couple of times, played in the twos, played a different role down back: as bitter a pill as it was to swallow at the time, it helped.
“It mightn’t have seemed like it at the time, but it did help. When I went back to playing forward, I read the ball better, my reaction from offence to defence was quicker. That allowed me to find some form when the team started to get it together.”
Silvagni “found his niche” – in his own words – in the side, across a number of different situations. There were times he played alongside Charlie Curnow, Tom De Koning and Harry McKay in attack, others where he played taller in the absence of McKay, and even had to fill in as one of the team’s designated rucks alongside Lewis Young when both De Koning and Marc Pittonet were injured at the same time.
His ability to fight through, return to form and play a role was a microcosm of the team’s efforts, and when he put pen to paper in September on a two-year extension, he felt the love of the Carlton faithful once more.
It must’ve been all of those “re-sign ‘SOS’” comments that were left on every social media post.
“Yes. Thanks everyone, that was nice!
“It was good to get it done, I’ve been a Carlton person my whole life.
“I was a little envious sitting in the stands, so hopefully next year I can be out there playing when the boys get back into the finals.”
Before then, there’s still plenty of water to go under the bridge.
Was there much planned for the off-season, Jack?
“Nope. Nothing. Just quiet, nothing heaps going on.”
We’ll let the below photo be the judge of that.
