“IT’S NICE to learn winning.”

Despite not delivering a full four-quarter performance, AFL Senior Coach Michael Voss is happy that his side can learn some challenging lessons while still taking home the four points.

This was despite Voss admitting the last 10 minutes of the final term were disappointing, with the Blues unable to sustain their second-half dominance: after kicking 11 of 13 goals, the Blues conceded the final four goals of the game in the 23-point win.

“There’s a way we want to play and that’s really important to us and the style of footy we want to play: we didn’t hold that up for four quarters, so we have to go to work on that,” Voss said. 

“We take away four points  — we were challenged, we got a great response, but didn’t like the way we finished. We’ve got things we need to work on in our game before we can even speculate what the rest of that looks like.” 

Voss noted that there was a need for a reset at half time, having been thoroughly beaten around the ball by North Melbourne.

After trailing in the stat at half time, the Blues were +10 in contested possessions in the third term, reaping the benefits of some positional tweaks and a renewed appetite at the contest.

Referencing the discussion at the main break, Voss was pleased with the way Carlton applied the corrections and went out with a hunger to prove themselves. 

“We weren’t really getting our hands on it - our defenders were - but around the ball, North really challenged us in a lot of areas,” he said. 

“We had a chat at half time and really spoke about our contest, playing too safe and we needed to light up the ball a bit more and give our forwards more looks.” 

The two Coleman Medallists were a big factor in the third-term surge, with Harry McKay and Charlie Curnow totalling 10 goals for the game. 

Voss acknowledged the impact that they had in the forward line, but also noted the need for the entire forward line to jell if they want to gain scoreboard dominance. 

That was the case on Good Friday, with all of Carlton's forward hitting the scoreboard in the 16-goal effort.

“While [McKay and Curnow] are threatening, we want our ground level to be threatening as well,” he said.  

“We’ve been able to get that balance in the last couple of weeks: our smalls have been threatening and if [the opposition] want to come off and jump in the air with Harry, then we have the ground level presence to be dangerous.”

Taking home a 23-point victory in their inaugural Good Friday SuperClash, Voss was quick to praise the turnout from the Carlton faithful, breaking the attendance record for the event. 

As 49,062 packed into Marvel Stadium to support a great cause, Voss said that the Club would be keen to "put our hand up" for an annual spot.

“Starting the week at the Royal Children’s Hospital, the perspective you have in football, we think what we do is pretty important but being able to go there and have some real perspective on where the game truly sits and what truly matters is really important to us,” he said. 

“Every now and then, you get to be a difference maker and it’s a really simple way to be able to do it - playing a footy game and wrapping a story around it, put a spotlight on the kids - I think we’ve achieved our goal.”