THE weekend marked just the second time in over a year where Carlton recorded two consecutive losses.
And if defender Nic Newman has his way, the Blues will respond in kind this weekend to nip it in the bud.
For the first time under Michael Voss, Carlton conceded two straight scores of 100 points or more, with Newman admitting on 3AW’s Wide World of Sports that it was a stat line which “stings a little bit”.
But all the Blues can do now is learn, look ahead and respond, starting this Sunday at Marvel Stadium against North Melbourne.
“Nobody wants to lose. Especially losing a couple in a row, it hurts,” Newman said.
“We felt like we were in a position to respond well after the Giants game, which we didn’t quite get right. We feel really confident in the fact that when we play our brand of footy, we can beat anyone in the comp. We haven’t done that in the past couple of weeks.
“’Vossy’ has done an amazing job in being pretty measured around where we’re at, what we’ve got to chase and get after as a group.
“As long as we can learn from it and look back on this time, saying we got something out of those losses, we can view it as a positive at the end of the day . . . we felt we did that against Sydney.”
Newman doubled down on forward Lachie Fogarty’s sentiments from Tuesday, singling out the need from an improvement in the defensive side of the game which served the Blues well in their five-game winning run throughout May and June.
"We've looked at vision - forwards, backs and mids - to get on the same page. It can be pretty confronting at times.
— Carlton FC (@CarltonFC) July 16, 2024
"We pride ourselves on contest and pressure, something 'Vossy' is massive on. For five weeks we were really good, and we've got no doubt we can do it again."
For Newman and the Blues, it’s “pretty clear” where the attention needs to be.
“I don’t think we’ve defended well enough. We’ve kicked some decent scores and felt we moved the ball okay at times, but ultimately we haven’t defended well enough for long enough. Teams have been able to kick goals a little bit too easily.
“We’ve been scored against from stoppages a little bit too much, especially on the weekend . . . we lost a little bit of shape around the ball. Behind the ball, we lost a couple of contests that we don’t feel we usually lose.
“We’ve reviewed our defence a lot in the last couple of weeks and it’s something we’re pretty keen to chase hard.”
