Retiring champion Docherty’s words for Carlton star

Oliver Caffrey | July 22, 2025

Beloved Carlton champion Sam Docherty has used his retirement announcement to apologise to Patrick Cripps for the pair not having the chance to lift a premiership cup together.

The inspirational 31-year-old will play his 184th and final game when the Blues face Hawthorn at the MCG this Thursday night.

Docherty has defied major adversity in his life to be an integral part of Carlton for the last decade, also becoming one of the most popular and respected players in the AFL.

He has twice beaten testicular cancer, leading him to become a member of the Peter Mac Cancer Foundation board.

Docherty’s remarkable return for round one of the 2022 season, just nine months after starting chemotherapy, will go down as the defining moment of his career and one of the most inspiring in the AFL this century.

Growing up supporting Carlton, Docherty was desperate to play in the Blues’ first AFL premiership since 1995.

After being drafted by Brisbane in 2011 and playing 13 games for the Lions, Docherty moved to Carlton for the 2014 season.

Tragically, Docherty’s father Eddie suffered a fatal heart attack while the recently turned 20-year-old was away was on his first pre-season camp with Carlton in Arizona.

The versatile Docherty started at Princes Park the same year Cripps did. The pair captained the club together from 2019-21, before Cripps  became the sole skipper amid Docherty’s health battles.

“We’ve had a solid dream together for the last 10 to 12 years about where we wanted to take this footy club,” Docherty told Cripps.

“I’m sorry I don’t get that moment that we’ve dreamed of. 

“It’s something that I’ve chased with you and wanted to have with you for the whole time I’ve been at the club, and that’s all our goal has ever been.

“Hopefully you get the success you deserve across your career.”

For all of the challenges Docherty had to overcome, he was a superb player when given the chance.

A John Nicholls medallist as Carlton’s best-and-fairest in 2016, he was named All-Australian in 2017.

But at the peak of his powers, Docherty suffered back-to-back knee reconstructions that ruled him out for the entire 2018 and 2019 seasons.

Coming off a brilliant run to the preliminary final in 2023 – Carlton’s best result in 23 years – Docherty ruptured his ACL for a third time in the opening game of 2024.

But he remarkably returned for the Blues’ elimination final defeat against the Brisbane Lions just six months later.

“I remember having a conversation with Vossy (Carlton coach Michael Voss) last year before I attempted the six-month ACL,” Docherty recalled.

“It was around like, ‘If this goes you’re done’.

“I kind of accepted that, but I thought that if that happened, that kind of epitomised my career in a way.

“I feel like I left it all out there and put my heart and soul into the footy club.”

Docherty opened his retirement press conference by speaking for almost 10 minutes before taking any questions.

It was standing room only as Docherty’s family – wife Natalie and their two children, Ruby and Myles – the entire Carlton playing list, football department, current and incoming chief executives Brian Cook and Graham Wright attended.

Voss sat in the front row, having been his first coach at the Lions in 2012, then his last at Carlton.

In between, Docherty was coached by Mick Malthouse, Brendon Bolton, and David Teague.

“For every challenge Sam has faced, he has turned it into a triumph,” Voss said.

“I still remember clear as day the first face-to-face conversation I had with Sam at the back end of 2021: we went for a walk and he told me he was going to play in round one in a few months’ time.

“To see him defy the odds and do that, to kick that goal against the Tigers – that typifies what a remarkable mindset he has.

“What he has done and will keep doing in the community continues to be an inspiration.”