IT WAS a dominant performance for the Blues as they surged to a 63-point victory over the Eagles in Perth.
Michael Voss was pleased at how Carlton stuck to its task and didn't get rattled after a second-quarter surge from West Coast.
Here's what he had to say about the significant win.
On the Eagles comeback:
"The second quarter, clearly West Coast got a hold of us. We’ve seen in the last month in particular, they’ve been able to challenge teams pretty significantly, both here and away: they’ve certainly got the capability to be able to do that.
"They weren’t missing a hell of a lot either so they were kicking pretty straight with the opportunities they did have, but they were able to build the pressure and they certainly asked the question of us at half time.
"We were able to correct a couple of things, some about intent, some about effort. I thought other than a couple of little things we needed to clean up, we had plenty of opportunities to hit the scoreboard and the last quarter, to be able to finish like that was a real positive.
"You can walk in at three-quarter time and perhaps be a little frustrated that the game is not panning out the way that you wanted it to, but the boys stuck to their task and they were able to change up a couple of things and the boys went to work and finished the game really strong."
On Charlie Curnow:
"He was important. I felt like we had a lot of guys who were contributing across the night. The end result is that our key forwards were able to get on the end of it tonight and they were able to hit the scoreboard: that’s a nice outcome.
"We tend to focus a lot more on the little things and how we generate those opportunities. We know if we can generate those opportunities then we can give ourselves a better chance of kicking a winning score."
On the half-time chat:
"It was pretty calm, it was pretty composed. There were some defensive stoppages that were causing some trouble for us and some urgency we needed around that so we cleared up a couple things in that space.
"Generally speaking, it was calm. We focus a lot on the little things really, we just strayed away from what we were doing. An opposition is always going to bring a surge at some stage, so our ability to focus on the little things and stick to our task is still something that we’re going to work on.
"We’re working pretty hard on it, we’re certainly narrowing that gap over the course of this year but there was a lot of that correction and the boys were able to correct that in the second half.
On finals expectations:
"I haven’t spoken to this group about finals and I won’t. We’ve got a lot of things we need to continue to go after and we’ve been able to spend some really quality time together improving those — we’ve seen enormous growth from Round 1 to where we are now.
"We’ve almost completed this season in stages, so that conversation is not a conversation we’re having. We’re pretty determined to get the best version of ourselves that gives us the best chance to get prepared for really big games, and we’ve got some big ones coming.
"The danger is you can take your eyes off the road and you forget about the next contest you’ve got to play. We get a great win against West Coast and our next contest is Geelong: there’s a team to reset you if you get ahead of yourself.
"It’s going to be a big game for us on Saturday night. We’re expecting a big crowd there, clearly our supporters are coming along in numbers, so we’re looking forward to that night."
On returning players:
"We’ve got a couple coming back this week, where they play, we’ll determine that as the week goes. Mitch McGovern is due to come back, as well as 'Pitto'."
On Jacob Weitering and the backline:
"I’ve been really impressed with our back six or back seven: they’ve been under siege at times and lost personnel, questions have been asked if they can stand up and they’ve just kept turning up.
"Whether they’ve been undersized, they’ve just got on with it. If we’ve lost a runner, they’ve got on with it. They’ve found a way.
"They’re a pretty close bunch, and we’ve talked a lot about next man in, but I must admit, I was pretty happy that the next man in was Jacob Weitering on this particular occasion: it just makes us a bit more balanced down there."
On Tom De Koning:
"He’s had some fair challenges. Certainly in the early days, we weren’t sure how quick his development would come this year.
“He’s gone to work really hard on his game and as a young player, it’s amazing when you give them a bit of responsibility, they just go after it.
"The 'mids' have really supported him hard and kept him present throughout games, he’s stuck to his task and he’s ably assisted by 'SOS' [Silvagni] coming up and being able to do the second ruck duties."
On the midfield group:
"'Walshy' was pretty good in the last quarter, he came in and was able to correct a few things. I thought our mids were good the whole day to be fair.
"I thought they really stuck at it. Even when it wasn’t going our way, they were able to just give us a chance. I spoke last week about the unrealistic expectation on our midfield group to have this midfield dominance and that’s nice 11 the results say that we were able to get that in our favour for tonight, but you can’t rely on it.
"There are a lot of great midfields out there that will have stages in games where they were able to get territory on the ground and we have to be good enough to absorb that when it’s our turn and be able to counterpunch when it’s our turn.
"When they needed to raise the intensity, they did. I think the real growth for us this year is that we’ve found other ways: all we ask them to do is compete, make sure there’s pressure on the ball so it gives us a chance."
On Jack Newnes:
"He had a cork. He was brave to get through the two quarters but it started to get really sore and he was a bit limited in his range so we had to activate the sub."
