THE RIDE isn't over.
After a bumpy start to proceedings in Round 23 where Carlton conceded the first five goals of the game, the Blues banded together to clinch a nail-biting four-point victory for the second consecutive week.
AFL Senior Coach Michael Voss was proud of the way his team were able to put the foot down and then hang tough in the dying minutes, despite his obvious disappointment at how the opening of the game panned out.
Here's what he had to say.
On securing a finals spot:
"It’s nice to lock it away. The danger is after last week's game was thinking the job was done: clearly there was some chance that wouldn’t happen.
"Recognising that there were a few things that had to go against us for that to happen but to take control of it and have destiny in your own hands about where you want to go next is pretty important. It was a serious challenge today, a really big challenge: we had to find that bit extra."
On Gold Coast's performance:
"There were moments there where it felt like we didn’t deserve to win. starting at quarter time so far back, that’s hard to peg back at any time, and it's certainly extremely hard when you’re away from home and playing on someone else’s home ground.
"Their last few weeks, Gold Coast has been very impressive, so we knew what we were walking into. We got the full version of it early and we were able to change the momentum after quarter time. Even in the last quarter, there were a few moments where I thought ‘that’s it, bit too hard’.
"Every challenge, we kept coming at it and stuck it out and we were able to win in the end."
On the first quarter:
"If you know Gold Coast’s game, you know they’re going to bring a strong contest. That’s such a strong area of their game.
"In the last two weeks against some quality midfields, they’ve done really well. We couldn’t get any ascendency out of there and we had a few things break down and some of our connection through midfield and turning it over in really high-quality areas for the opposition, which made it really hard for us to get any traction.
"We tidied it up a bit in the contest, we went to work on our ball movement and gave ourselves an opportunity to have it in our front half for a bit longer."
On Charlie Curnow's performance:
"A brilliant performance, an absolutely brilliant performance. I’d like to sit here and say everyone does their role, but also, you need to take your moments: he’s taken his moments. Any little window he's getting, he’s been able to impact significantly.
"I think even if I had decided for him to go or not, he’d [go down] back, which I was thankful he did.
"He brings an enormous amount of energy: not just to the crowd, he brings the players along as well. I think what I’ve been really pleased with is Charlie has been in such wonderful form, but we’ve had our weight of numbers for a while now. We’ve been really sticking at it, being stronger together and as a result of that, that is what moves the needle.
"When you get those opportunities like Charlie had, he’s been good enough to find those moments in close games, but it’s through the weight of numbers that we find ourselves able to work through that."
On training 'clutch' moments:
"It’s amazing how you get the confidence through rehearsal: we’ve been working through a lot through the last little while to really nail those moments.
"We had a moment in the fourth quarter with Collingwood, we stared that down and it was real growth for us. We had some moments with St Kilda at half time and we had to absorb a lot and find our way against Melbourne in the last four minutes. We didn’t get it right, we weren’t fantastic but we found a way, so we gave it a little bit more work.
"We might have to stop saving the game though! We use it a little bit too much so we might try something different at training this week."
On the upcoming weeks:
"The big thing for us, throughout all of this, is it’s going to be amazing when we can sit back and reflect on it. But right now, we’re in the moment.
"This wasn’t about making finals, it was about impacting them: we feel like the job isn’t done. We’ve got more in us, we want to go to the line hard because we’ve got that momentum in us and lots of questions asked about us, as you would expect in a really high-level competition. We’ve been able to work our way through some of those.
"We weren’t perfect today, we were imperfect a lot, but we were able to work our way through it."
On the feeling at the final siren:
"That was a big moment for the Club. Since I’ve started, that goal has been clear about what the direction would look like.
"We’ve had to work through a lot of things as a team, and we’ve had an extreme amount of adversity: it’s a great story behind that. We’ve taken a lot out of it and we can use that moving forward.
"That was just a great moment for the Club to be able to have that confirmation. It hasn’t been said for a while at this Club, I’m proud to be saying it.
"We're playing finals footy."
