NAIL the big moments.

That was the message from AFL Senior Coach Michael Voss to his players after the two-point defeat to Adelaide at Marvel Stadium.

After being served so well by those very moments in previous close wins, Voss said the Blues got some key plays wrong on a night where they were off defensively, ultimately resulting in the team's winning start to 2024 coming to an end.

Speaking on the team's brand of football, Sam Walsh's outstanding return and what the Blues can still improve on, this is what he had to say in totality.

On the instant response to the game:

“We’re bitterly disappointed. We haven’t felt this way for a while, so we’re clearly very disappointed. The game last week we half-snatched it and got our last five minutes right, this week we got it wrong. The moments that you need to be able to win those sort of games, we had two or three that we’d like back. Such is how tight those games are and the ebbs and flows in the momentum. 

“Overall, I didn’t think we defended well enough across the night — that was the main thing, which is interesting because last week I thought we defended extremely well. We’ll have a look at that and how we can get a bit better, but it felt for most of the night that Adelaide was able to move the ball a little bit too efficiently. Their finish was extremely efficient as well. Their shot quality was very good, we were obviously very inaccurate in the second half. 

“At the end of the day, in a tight game, it can fall to those moments and it can fall to your efficiency. They were better in those moments, and they walk away with the game.”

On losing out in the final moments:

“Some of it was in our control. You still have to acknowledge the opposition and their good play to put you under some level of tension. We’ve handled those moments very well. As I said to the boys, you’ve got to have some level of perspective — there’s been a lot of times where we’ve got those right. We got a couple wrong today. 

“In the bigger picture of things, there’s been a lot more to like than not, but that doesn’t mean that individuals or us won’t look at it as hard as we can to try and get it better next time. That bounce of the ball went the other way today, and that’s something we have to live with and learn from and get better.”

On Adam Saad and Mitch McGovern:

“Hamstrings at the moment. That’s what they were out of the game for. We’ll wait for Monday for the scans to see what happens from there.”

On fewer rotations in the last quarter:

“We don’t use it as a reason. We still had three on the bench that we could use. A couple of defenders go down so we had to shift the magnets a bit, we had to put guys in other roles. But I didn’t feel like that [was the difference]. If we maximise our moments, we don’t need those. That’s the hard reality. 

“In terms of a more balanced profile in the way we played, it was better in terms of the contest and clearance and trying to make it a forward-of-centre game. But if I had to take a bigger picture of the game, I never felt like we defended as well as what we could have.”

On Sam Walsh’s return:

“Incredible. His diligence that he’s had in that period of time, he’s had to be patient. The realisation of being out there, he’s very grateful he’s back out there playing football and we’re grateful that he’s out there. To be able to have our midfield mix with him in it, it’s obviously very important. He gives us a lot of drive. 

“I’m sure he’ll look at his game critically as he always does, we’ll see where it gets better, but we’re obviously a better team with him in it.”

On an improved clearance showing:

“I’d have to go back and look at the vision a bit more, but we certainly got enough drive out of there to maximise our opportunities. It’s why I don’t get too lost on ‘do you win stoppages?’. The reality is we won stoppages today and lost. You’ve got to look at the game in its totality and what you think you did really well. We’re always looking for that strong, balanced profile, but I just felt the consistency of being able to defend for long enough was not there. 

“When you get to the end of the game and there’s five minutes to go, defence has to be the thing that stands up. It wasn’t as robust as we needed it to be in the really big moments. We’ll have to look at that and how we can make that a bit better. Adelaide have spoken about their ball movement and how they want to improve it, they’ve clearly gone to work on it and it’s a credit to them to be able to hang in and stay present. 

“It’s a pretty critical moment for them in the wash-up of the whole season, but we’ll go back and look at where we can get better. We shift our eyes pretty quickly to GWS, that’s our next challenge.”

On Adam Cerra:

“Hamstring on Thursday, he got a bit tight. We explored it a little bit more the next day, and later in the day we found there was a slight little strain there. A low-grade strain. We’ll assess timelines and where that lies on Monday.”

On the overall style played today:

“I was a lot more pleased with how we went about tonight, there was more of our game together — the outcome was not the outcome we want. But in terms of being able to play the style of footy we need to be able to play, it was closer to what we want. But it just shows that this competition is really hard and we’ve seen it week after week after week, we make no assumptions, we take nothing for granted. 

“We talk a lot about earning the right and staying really present to what we’ve got in front of us. I think we’ve done that really well. But we’ve got to assess this correctly and look to where we get better, and also reward what we did well.”

On Adelaide’s defensive structure:

“It’s not unusual to see that, it’s quite a common thing to see that defensive support [against Curnow and McKay] — whether that’s directly on a man or not, that’s not an unusual look against us. I thought we navigated that reasonably well. They’ve still had their involvements and that’s part of the system we’re trying to get better. 

“As a result of trying to get through that, I thought we were able to stick to us a lot longer and challenge the opposition. If you look at the game itself, we’ve had 21 forward-half intercepts to their 13, so we were able to get territory and also able to keep it in their long enough. 

“But I think we can summarise by the fact that it wasn’t for long enough and they had four or five minutes where they were able to get scores really quickly. It might have only been a couple, but when they got them, they were able to kick them, and it keeps you in the game. It’ll be something to look at. We’ll look at it with a balanced view.”

On the touched call against Matthew Owies in the third term:

“I don’t have the benefit, being on the interchange bench, and seeing what happened there. Right now, I can only assume they got it right.”

On using two rucks:

“Cerra came out of the team, so that’s how we got the rucks in there. We’ve always looked at it, ‘Pitto’ has got himself in really good condition in the past couple of weeks. He’s put himself in a position to ask the question of coming into the team, Tom on his own has been really good and Harry has been supporting him. 

“It’s been something we’ve been talking about, when’s the right time to be able to do it. It’s not so much a luxury, but it’s a different structure we can go forward with if we need to. Tonight we thought that’s what we thought we’d go with in terms of the two rucks.”