LEWIS Young knows that last week’s big win over West Coast wasn’t the be all and end all.

The way in which the team backs that performance up against Brisbane - a top-four team over the last three years - will be just as telling.

Speaking to RSN Breakfast, Young, who enjoyed that 108-point win over West Coast to mark his 50th AFL game, said the offensive versus defensive battle will make for great viewing on Friday night football.

“A lot of system-based defence will be needed this weekend: they’ve got a very good forward line. We’re looking forward to the challenge as a backline group and as a team,” Young said.

“We had a couple of disappointing weeks in a row and we wanted to put together a full four-quarter performance. We felt like we did that.

“We’ve got really strong expectations of ourselves as a team within the playing group, and the coaches put that on us.”

Coming up against an opponent that has had a strong recent record against Carlton, Young said the Blues would be looking for a big showing and a big scalp against the free-scoring Lions.

Aware of the external noise in recent weeks, Young said the best way to respond was to continually put in strong team performances, which would be dictated by what those inside the four walls at IKON Park say.

“It’s an internal thing where we put pressure on ourselves. We all want to perform, we all want to win, we all want to be part of a winning team,” he said.

“External pressures, we try to minimise them as much as we can. Personally . . . I’ve been in the system for seven years . . . staying off social media and not reading much into the newspapers are keys. 

“We try to keep things internal and we have some things in the Club that we go after really hard, that potentially people in the media don’t see.”

One player who has very much lived the up-and-down journey since his arrival into the AFL system is Brodie Kemp, with the young defender playing his sixth full senior game on the weekend (one was as unused medical sub).

Putting together his best performance to date, Kemp was the beneficiary of sustained standout football in the VFL, with Young saying that nobody was happier for Kemp than his teammates.

“It was really pleasing. He’s been knocking the door down for the last five or six weeks, so to get him in and see how well he played, you look at those first two big contested marks and it really gave him some confidence,” he said.

“It gave us around him confidence as well, knowing he was coming in, was playing his role and would be really good at it.

“I’m really pleased for him. He’s had an up-and-down run in the system so far, so it’s good to get him in and playing some good footy: hopefully he can repeat it for a while.”