MICHAEL Voss didn't want to make excuses for his side's performance against the Suns. 

Here's what he said after the 31-point defeat. 

On the contested play: 

"[The Suns] were tougher than us, cleaner than us, we were still able to put some tackle heat on them but their ability to then get it to the outside quickly was pretty impressive throughout the night.

"It was forcing us to make some tactical adjustments that we wouldn't normally if we could get away with it but the reality is across the whole night, they sustained it a lot better than we were able to." 

On Patrick Cripps: 

"These ones are a bit of an assessment and wait and see, we’ll just wait to find out and then make some calls from there.

"Nothing really changes for us. Another man comes in and we’ve had the capability in that group to be able to get it done, [Sam] Walsh was missing there for a game or two and we were able to do a great job there as well.

"While the captain has been in great form and he’s a fantastic leader and he’s obviously a contested beast, we can’t dismiss that, but at the same time, that would be letting us off the hook." 

On pre-game preparation: 

"I don’t look at games as danger games, those are things that get spoken about outside of the four walls.

"Our approach doesn’t change throughout the week, we give the same respect to every single opposition that we play against. We didn’t have to read too far if you followed up on Gold Coast’s result last week to understand that they were going to bring a contested style of football. [Stuart] 'Dewy' was pretty strong on that throughout the week.

"It felt like we prepped accordingly, it’s an area we’ve been extremely strong on across pre-season and the early games so it’s somewhat of an outlier from what we’ve seen. If there’s one thing we’ve been able to bank on this year, it’s that we’ve been pretty sustainable in the contest and our method might’ve fluctuated from time to time but our contest really put us in the fight in our previous games."

On the absence of Marc Pittonet: 

"Certainly we’d like 'Pitto' out there, it was always a possibility throughout that 'Pitto' wouldn't get up so we provided the plan accordingly should it happen.

"It gave [the Suns] first use, the ball is won in the air but also won on the floor and we just sort of lacked that proactiveness at ground level and they were just far more effective and willing to fight through that some more than we were.

"If the game gets dirty, we just have to make sure we step up into that and I feel like we’ve done that pretty well throughout the early parts of the games but Gold Coast were particularly impressive in that part of the game and they really challenged that." 

On personale changes: 

"We will look at this game on Tuesday, see what worked and what didn’t work.

"Mostly, if we just come back to that ability to hold the shape around the ball, we just lost too many metres across the night and put our backs under a lot of pressure and as a result, it sort of challenged our efficiency coming out of there and Gold Coast went tough but also efficient and they were able to put the scoreboard pressure on us." 

On undisciplined acts: 

"It’s amazing when you’re up against it and you’re trying to find your way back in the game, it seems to be the team that’s in that position that gives away the 50s.

"Our ability to remain composed through those times is important. I don’t want to be dismissive of what happened tonight, we’ve got the evidence saying we have to rectify it and quickly but we’ve been challenged in games throughout the early part of the season and have responded really well: we’ve responded with some really good method in the way we want to play and we’ve also been able to maintain our discipline in those times when it was needed, so tonight was a bit different than what we’ve seen before."