TO GET the full picture of what has made Josh Fraser the coach he is, and the undeniable standout candidate to win the Carlton job full-time, you need to go back almost 10 years and inside a VFL program stacked with Blues players simply biding their time on the club's list.

Liam Jones was among them. For almost three seasons, Jones had felt like his papers were stamped. It was a perception that was held by almost everyone at Carlton throughout that time, so much so that Jones almost believed it himself. He would see out the final year of his contract, get delisted, and be done with life in the AFL.

One man didn't believe that, though. It was Josh Fraser.

Then the coach of Carlton's VFL program, Fraser never gave up on Jones. He didn't give up on anyone as a person, let alone what they were like as a footballer. It's perhaps what has made him the perfect person to resurrect a Blues team down on their luck this season, reshaping them from zeroes to heroes in the space of three months and guiding a sorry program to the cusp of something special this September.

"The biggest thing he does is instil belief into players," Jones tells AFL.com.au.

"From personal experience, I was all but done and in the last year of my contract. I wasn't in anyone's plans moving forward, but the time that he took to invest in me and see so much growth in what I could do as a player … he made a relationship with me as a person and that was quite surprising at that time.

"I was going through a little bit of criticism and there was a lot of discussion about my career being over. But the belief he showed in me and the positivity and the growth areas he showed I could achieve, they always seemed manageable.

"As a coach, that was in 2017, so he would have had so much more growth and experiences at different clubs that have helped him up until this point. But his biggest thing is that he's just such a genuine person. He can see so much positivity in what players can do, as opposed to what they can't do."

The story of Jones' career after that has been well told. The failed forward went back, reinvented himself as a defender – under Fraser's watch in the VFL – and then reclaimed his place in the senior team. He would play for another eight seasons, passing 200 games at both Carlton and the Western Bulldogs. Not bad for someone who saw their career as being effectively over before Fraser's intervention.

Fraser has been widely praised as the tactical mastermind behind Jones' defensive switch. Among the many others that have tried taking credit for the move in the years since, that perhaps tracks the most given the now-full-time Carlton coach's awareness and savvy in flipping the magnets around since taking over as Blues interim as well.

He's moved Jagga Smith back into the middle to great effect, shifted Adam Cerra around the square, pushed Harry McKay through the ruck, revived Blake Acres and Matt Cottrell's fortunes on a wing, handed more opportunity to youngsters like Talor Byrne and Billy Wilson, and found gaps for the likes of Wade Derksen and Lewis Young to fill at either end of the ground.

As for Jones himself, he thinks circumstance played the most significant part in his own positional switch back in 2017, rather than any individual. But he's unsure any of it would have mattered, had it not been for the unwavering belief shown in him by Fraser when most others had turned their backs on him.

"I can recall playing my first game in defence for the VFL side in round one in that 2017 season," Jones says. "I didn't know what I was doing and I only found out I was playing in defence the night before the game.

"After the game, I was a little bit sheepish to go in and do my review with 'Frase'. But midway through the review, he was telling me how well I did and how good I could still play in this position. He was just so glass half-full and had so much optimism. I thought I'd played pretty average.

"We couldn't play with five key forwards in the one team and everyone thought that I was the one that was just biding my time on the list so I went back. In saying that, I had felt that from others but I never felt that from him. He looked at it through such a positive lens.

"I wasn't filled with that much belief in what I was capable of at that time. But he was so optimistic about it. He just continued to feed me so much great feedback in the areas that I had to improve on. He was very clear with those and I felt like I could really action the things that he gave me feedback on. I obviously managed to get my career going again and played for another eight years."

It was Fraser's authentic leadership style, his personality and character, and the culture he'd created in his brief but successful stint as Carlton's interim coach that shot him to the forefront of the club's search process earlier this year.

Fraser was the fifth candidate to join a shortlist that also featured Fremantle's Jaymie Graham, St Kilda's Corey Enright, Geelong's James Kelly and Hawthorn's Daniel Giansiracusa for the Carlton role, eventually entering the process three months after he had candidly discussed his reluctance to initially take part and three weeks after the Blues hierarchy had asked him to apply.

The club has since remained adamant that Fraser came out ahead in all of its metrics to be its next permanent senior coach, regardless of his record as caretaker. The fact that he'd steered a previously hapless side from a languishing 1-8 record to 12-1-10 and a spot in the finals was just a bonus, albeit a wildly beneficial one.

Carlton's process considered a range of factors. Fraser's personable nature, and his standing as a player's coach, ranked high among them. But his football IQ, his innovative approach to tactics, his player development and education, his adaptability, and the way he'd embraced data and analytics reflected a candidate fully qualified for the position.

Carlton has hailed Fraser's considered but holistic approach to all parts of the program, be it game style, list or the continued development of the group. But while Fraser has demonstrated that in a more public forum through his coaching in the back half of this season, it's been evident since he first took the reins of Gold Coast's NEAFL program in 2014. It continued at the Northern Blues, then the Northern Bullants, and even during a stint coaching Collingwood's VFL side.

VFL great and Melbourne's current AFLW coach Tom Wilson has followed Fraser's journey through most of that process. Having been at the Blues and the Bullants from 2016 to 2022, playing mostly under Fraser, he then followed the former No.1 pick to Collingwood in 2023 and validates the perspective of the 44-year-old as a genuine person first and foremost.

"For me, he's always been someone that I've looked up to and respected highly. I've always valued his opinion," Wilson tells AFL.com.au.

"When I was working with him at the Northern Blues and the Northern Bullants, then later at Collingwood, he was almost a coach or a leader that you didn't want to let down. You had that much respect and admiration for him.

"I've always valued his opinion, always valued his thought processes, and always felt like he was someone I could approach quite comfortably to seek advice from. He's just a really passionate and driven person. That's probably what pops off the charts.

"He really is genuinely invested in his players. Over a period of time, being fortunate enough to work with him, that has sustained all the way through. In 2016, it was the first year I got to work with him, and that's been really consistent in terms of him just wanting the best for his players. His ability to build really strong relationships with his players, that's probably the thing that I remember the most about him."

What stood out most to Carlton throughout Fraser's presentation to the club's coaching selection panel was his ability to combine his personable nature with a deep understanding of the tactical side of the game. While small tweaks have been made to a gameplan architected by Fraser alongside Michael Voss across the 2025-26 summer, the Blues are excited by what fundamental changes he can now implement when handed full control next pre-season.

Already, Carlton has gone from being among the worst defensive sides in the competition to one of the best under Fraser's watch. The team's scores against, its scores per inside 50 against and its scores against from turnover, clearance and centre bounce are all down significantly since he took charge.

Offensively, the Blues have become a more modern side since Fraser took over. They've retained one of their biggest assets from Voss' rein, their ability to score big from stoppage, while also ranking high in more sustainable areas like forward-half intercepts and scoring from turnover.

They're more kick-mark, leaving less opportunity for the wild momentum swings that hurt Voss' teams. They're less corridor, more boundary. They change angles, have more control, kick long less, kick back more, and defend through their own possession. All of those changes have been made despite Fraser being at the helm for only 14 games.

"His football IQ is really strong, but I think one of his greatest strengths is that he's got an ability to identify what is the most important thing for the players to go and execute," Wilson says.

"He's got a great way of delivering it with a really clear message. That's probably one of his strengths, among a lot of them. But that's one of the best of them. He can understand what the whole game requires, but then break it down to what's going to be the most important thing for moving the needle. He's got an ability to funnel that and deliver it in a clear message.

"What you see in the media in terms of him being calm and collected, that's what he is behind closed doors as well. It's the ability to articulate the message, he just nails it. He gets it right.

"He's got a great ability of being able to read the room and understand what the room requires at the time. But what everyone's seen over the last 14 weeks with how articulate he is with the media, in particular, that's reflective of his messaging to the players as well."

Upon his unveiling as Carlton coach earlier this month, Fraser spoke glowingly of his experiences leading reserves programs at the Suns, Blues and Pies are being a significant part of his 13-year journey through the coaching ranks. But it was two seasons with the Northern Bullants after the game's COVID shutdown that have perhaps made him more equipped than most to lead a club the size of Carlton.

Fraser led a standalone Northern Bullants program for two seasons after it separated from Carlton's alignment and didn't just have a role as coach. According to Wilson, he was essentially the club's secretary, its commercial boss, its marketing manager, its lead recruiter and everything else as well. That experience, his former VFL captain believes, will help him manage stakeholders across every department at Ikon Park.

He combined leading his own teams at VFL and NEAFL level with development roles at Carlton and Gold Coast, a stint as head of development at Collingwood, and line duties as an assistant with both the Pies and then the Blues.

But it's also his unique playing career that has given Fraser stark perspective on the rigours of the AFL industry. A No.1 pick at Collingwood back in 1999, the former ruck played in two losing Grand Finals across a 200-game, 11-year career with the Pies. He then switched to Gold Coast in 2011, a year after missing out on selection for Collingwood's 2010 premiership victory, guiding an expansion side through its first two seasons in the competition and adding another 18 appearances to his tally.

"In 2023, we played in the first VFL wildcard game against Richmond," Wilson says.

"In his pre-game address to the playing group, it was around how he didn't maximise the opportunities he had as a player and the lessons he wished he'd learned that he now knows. He encouraged us to take those lessons and make sure we don't fall for the same things that he did during his career. He wanted us to learn from our experiences.

"We came out and won quite comfortably that day. But there was a real sense among the playing group around, 'Wow, this bloke really does care about us as humans as well as us as players'.

"He was always really driven, but he was also a person where no matter what playing group you were involved with, his players loved him. When I was at Northern Blues, then Northern Bullants, then went to Collingwood, every playing group that I was involved with would just be going, 'How good is 'Frase'?'

"He's so easy to go and talk to, which I think is really important, particularly now. But he was really approachable, even back then. His players really gravitated to him, which has always held him in good stead."

Fraser signed a three-year deal as Carlton's next permanent coach, taking him through until 2029. It was just reward for revitalising the Blues in such a short space of time, and for a coaching journey that's spanned longer than 13 years and through a variety of different experiences and programs.

But while his Carlton career will begin in earnest during the side's upcoming finals campaign, starting with what had once appeared the most unlikely of wildcard games against Melbourne on Saturday night, there's plenty of excitement still for what Fraser can now build upon long-term at Ikon Park in the years to come.

"There's just genuine care there," Jones says. "I've still got a great relationship with 'Frase'. We don't talk all that often, but he'll check in every now and then. I owe a lot to him and he's helped me have a career closer to the one that I always wanted.

"If anyone ever asks me who was my best coach along my journey, although he was my VFL coach at the time, I'll always say Josh Fraser was the best coach I've had in my career. Obviously, I'm a bit biased – he helped turn my career around and had a genuine care for me – but the answer is an easy one for me."