Port Adelaide coach Josh Carr opens up on relationship with star Zak Butters
Updated ,first published
Darwin: Port Adelaide coach Josh Carr has reiterated his tough stance on the club’s compensation if its champion and free agent chooses to leave, detailing how he and Port Adelaide are handling the decision Zak Butters faces over whether to return to Victoria.
Carr said the Butters controversy, one of the biggest AFL stories of 2026, had not affected team performance and that he and Butters were “really open with each other” about his situation.
Carr also made a strong case for the AFL to change a problem in its bidding system rule change, highlighting the problem facing not just Port Adelaide but potentially any of the 18 clubs in 2027, when Tasmania will take the lion’s share of the first round of the national draft.
While Butters is exploring a move back to Victoria – the Bulldogs and Geelong are seen as frontrunners for him – the Port Adelaide coach said the club had achieved a scenario where Butters and Power put the team first without impacting on team performance this year.
“I’ve been there as a player too,” Carr told this imprint in an exclusive interview discussing Butters before the Power’s match in Darwin. Carr traded to Fremantle after Port won the 2004 premiership.
“I think everyone understands that when a player’s contract is up, he has the right to explore and understand what’s there.
“And we understand the players want to go home and we want to bring players from Adelaide back to Adelaide.”
Carr also said Port would remain interested in Saints star Nasiah Wanganeen-Milera if they were to explore a move, with Saints only signing a two-year extension last year.
“So, to understand the landscape, I think our maturity as a football club, and also Zak’s, is about the moment and the investment we’re making in the football club at the moment and making sure we all get better.
“And he’s a great leader of our football club. He leads by example. He demands high standards at the football club and that hasn’t stopped and so we’ve been really honest with each other about what that looks like and making sure we put the team first and that’s been everyone’s aim and we think that’s been achieved now.
“We’re always really open to each other and what that looks like. But it still comes down to making sure the team isn’t affected. And I don’t think it is.”
The Power were fiercely competitive in Carr’s first season as senior coach, knocking off Geelong and nearly beating Hawthorn.
He is confident that the club will match any offer for Butters if the player exercises his free agency rights, necessitating a trade. Butters might only offer a first-round option for the Force if he lets them part, but Liman would demand much more in a trade.
“It’s not even really a debate…we’re going to match it. So whatever it is, it’s going to be matched,” Carr said.
It’s clear to see why, considering Butters was Port’s best player again by a significant margin on Friday night, finishing with 35 touches, eight tackles and eight tackles in the 25-point defeat to the Suns.
Like Carlton, Port have a potential No. 1 pick in this year’s draft; Doug Cochrane, who was recruited from the academy. But Carr said Power does not consider Cochrane, who could pay the equivalent of the fourth and eighth picks in the draft, to be an effective trade for Butters if he is bid at No. 1 overall.
“We don’t actually think of it that way,” he said.
Speaking about Tasmania’s influence on draft bids in 2027, Carr said the AFL should consider all clubs, not just the Devils, with its 2027 draft rules, when the Power would have the right to take highly-rated youngster Louis Salopek as a father-son selection and potentially another member of their next-generation academy.
The league has made the price higher for clubs with father-son and academy player rights, with a maximum of two picks that can be used to match an offer under the revised system.
The port’s position is not to oppose Tasmania’s draft carry, which would include selections one, three, five, seven, nine or more.
They want the bid to be in line with the ladder position and their own “natural” selection, rather than the skewed order created by Tasmania, which has the lion’s share of the draft in the first part of the draft. If the AFL uses actual 2027 predictions regardless of seeding order, clubs will have difficulty matching bids.
“From my perspective as a coach, we’re doing everything we can and will do to get these players and there’s still a bit of a clue what next year is going to look like with Tasmania coming in,” he said. “We hope the AFL has everyone in mind – we’re not just Tasmania when it comes to these decisions.
“So right now, if this continues, the value of our election could fall short of what Tasmania has.
“So discussions are taking place and hopefully it will be taken into account that whoever it is, it’s not just us, it’s all AFL clubs, if you have a choice, that value also applies in terms of offers from Tassie.”
Carr said Port tried hard to attract Wanganeen-Milera last year and remains interested if he is open to a move.
“There is no need for me to go into such detail, but I must say that, like every club, I work hard to bring the best players into the competition,” he said.
“It would have been nice to get him to Adelaide or back… But that was the way it was.”
“We want good players. We want to bring players back to Adelaide and if he’s open to making a move then we’ll have those discussions.”
Carr said gun-toting midfielder Jason Horne-Francis, the No.1 draft pick of 2021, was maturing in his preparation for the AFL and agreed with those who likened the powerful match-winner to Hawthorn’s Luke Hodge, who took the time to become a superstar compared to West Coast’s Chris Judd when they both emerged from the 2001 draft.
“I think he looks elite right now in terms of how he prepares himself, for example physically, how he looks after his body and his understanding of what it takes to be a professional footballer. He has a lot of advantages.
“I think it’s fair [comparison]. “He loves football, but he also loves his friends.”
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Jake Niall is a Walkley-winning sports journalist and The Age’s chief AFL writer.Connect with: X or email.
