STAYING the course.

Speaking to media the day before Carlton's clash with the Western Bulldogs, AFL Senior Coach Michael Voss was clear that expectations remained the same around the team's fortunes this season, and the main task was the Round 9 challenge. 

Here's what he had to say.

On commentary around playing finals football:

"There seems to be an obsession to define a season by Round 8. I guess that’ll always be a topic of discussion: I’ve become confused by the whole conversation because the agenda of how we want to go about our business was set at the final siren of last year. We appreciated as a football team that we need to get better at what we did.

"The only added context I’d like to provide around those comments is that it was more referring to getting better in a lot of little things that we want to hold us to be sustainably good for a long period of time.

"I don’t think we should be confused about what our expectations are. We don’t just want to participate in finals: we want to have a say, we want to have an impact. That agenda hasn’t changed.

"But thinking into the future doesn’t help us now. It won’t help us tomorrow night. We’ve got a job to do against a really good opposition, and we need to get to work.

On acknowledging fan frustration:

"Of course we can. We recognise that. What I would say is we value our supporters greatly, when we come to the footy and they feel like they’re really connected in what we do and how we play. It’s exceptionally important to us.

"They have such a significant say on the performance of our team. We look forward to all of those moments where we get to play in front of a large crowd. It’s a sellout again and they’re turning up in numbers: I’ll keep encouraging them to bring that noise for us, and the positive energy we want.

"When the game gets tough, we need them. They come with passion and gee, I’d love to see that tomorrow night."

On the return of Matthew Cottrell:

"His progression in his footy in his last 15 months has been particularly impressive. He brings a heap of energy for us, and Matty Owies is the same. They’re welcome additions back in the team.

"[Cottrell] adds some versatility and flexibility into our team, and allows each player to play their roles when you’ve got a player that can play a couple of different spots for us. We understand it’s his first game back after an extended period of time, but his form has been promising."

On Patrick Cripps looking for a response:

"I think that would be stating the obvious. It’s only happened a few times in the last little while and what I would say is he doesn’t own all of that.

"He’s got a job to be able to do and the midfield has a job to do. We’ll lean on [Cripps] when we need to, but it’s the collective moment that makes the difference. How do we support him when those moments happen?

"It’s going to be the same with Bontempelli. At times, because they’re very good players, they’ll have their way — but how do you stop a really great player from maximising those moments less? We’ve got to focus on getting us right and getting those opportunities the other way."

On the team's ball movement:

"I think it’s more the consistency. In some ways, I feel it’s been clouded by a quarter here and there more so than what’s happening across an entire game: on the weekend that was maybe a bit different. There’s certainly some things to tidy up.

"We acknowledge we’ve got some work to do in that area and we’ve clearly gone to work on that this week, that was the feedback we got out of the game. With a longer week, we’ve been able to put a couple of training sessions in place. We hope to see a change in that: it’s not one of those things where you walk away and say ‘it’s all fixed’, but we’re playing against some good teams and we need to be able to work through that."

On the midfield mix:

"We’ve got some genuine strengths in there. You can sometimes focus on what you haven’t got, or you can look at what you have got. We’ve got some good strengths in our team that deliver some great things for us. If that’s the worst thing we’re dealing with, I’d take it."