THE message has been consistent coming out of Carlton. 

Whether that’s with players or coaches fronting media, or from Michael Voss’ multiple addresses to the players. Both in the lead-up and the aftermath of the elimination final win over Sydney.

We don’t want to make up the numbers, we want to impact.

The Blues enjoyed a winning return to September action last Friday night in front of over 92,000 fans, but as Sam Docherty said, after such a long wait, the Blues are wanting more.

“To be able to play the way we did and get the result was awesome, but we’re careful not to be one and done,” Docherty told AFL 360.

“It’s been a fair build-up for us players over a long period of time, our last final was in 2013. You double that down with our amazing supporter base who have been waiting for this moment, the game, the atmosphere and to have a home final was pretty incredible.

“But we’ve got a pretty important job to do this week.”

Docherty was proud of the “conviction” his team and Club showed this year to stay the course, to back themselves in and to come out the other side of a mid-season malaise. He didn’t need to be reminded of the stat that he ranked third for Carlton games played to wait for September action, behind great mates Patrick Cripps and Jacob Weitering.

The veteran didn’t want to hear any suggestions that the elimination final win was Carlton’s zenith, however. He wanted to make it clear it was very much the contrary.

“I’m a big believer that the journey is the fun of it anyway, although mine hasn’t been littered with finals appearances and finals success. Ultimately, you’re trying to win the Grand Final: you can play in 40 finals and not win a Grand Final.

“The journey to get here has been very up and down, and I’m pretty proud of the group we’ve got now in terms of the resilience and commitment we’ve got to each other and to the way we play. It’s exciting moving forward.

“To have the conviction to hold strong through that period of time . . . to be able to hold to what we wanted to be and commit to being that as a footy club, and then have 46 guys on one list going in the same direction, it’s been pretty powerful.”

In some ways, Docherty didn’t feel as though last Friday night was his first final given experiences of years gone by. But you can know for certain that he’s just as excited for his second final as his first.

“A few clubs get a bit of an insight into what these games are about anyway, without playing in finals. The game we played against [Collingwood] at the back end of last year was nuts: that was essentially an elimination final for us, 90,000 at the ‘G and we lost in the last 30 seconds. That’s as heartbreaking as you can get.

“That experience of going through those games and living those moments held us in good stead. To be able to stand strong and commit to what we were doing, playing the back end of the last quarter the way we should without much panic was really good for our group.”