IT WASN'T the way Carlton wanted to start their 2024 season, but there was plenty to learn from their Week 1 clash with a new-look Hawthorn.

Senior Coach Mathew Buck was able to see glimpses of the Blues' new game plan taking effect, but with strong winds and an onslaught of physical pressure, executing the fundamentals became difficult.

Here's what he had to say.

On the game as a whole:

“It’s not the way we wanted to start. Credit to Hawthorn, I thought they were brutal around the contest and used the ball really well.

“We’ll go away and take our lessons from this one – I think they gave us a few to be honest. We’ll go to work what we need to get after this week and dust ourselves off.

“We’ve got an away game this week, we’ll travel together and it’ll be about the response.”

On how the team managed the conditions:

“When the wind’s blowing heavily one way you’ve got to take your moments in the game. We kind of started that way, and we managed to get a few on the board, but then we couldn’t capitalise post that.

“One I think that’s through Hawthorn’s good defensive work. And two, our ability to connect forward just wasn’t where we’d like it to be. I thought our clearance game was strong enough, but if we can’t connect post that then it's not going to help us.

“We’ve got a little bit of work to do on that, but what I do know is that we will go and do that work and our players will be ready and up for that.”

On method ahead of the ball:

“We’re defending for a long period of game, 20 inside 50s isn’t enough looks for Mia Austin to capitalise on.

“Mia will continue to grind and get after it, there’s no doubt about that. We always see Mia get better and better all the time.

“We collapsed back a little bit and probably didn’t quite get the way we’d like to transition once we win the ball back. I thought we were a little bit slow to transition forward but again, that’s an avenue we’ll look to work on next time.”

On Vescio and Hill’s positional changes:

“It's difficult if you’re not getting your contest done well enough to then rely on your outside roles that you’ve got in place.

“We probably had to make some adjustments in game to help support our contest within the ball to get the ball outside, so I don’t think we saw the best of it today, but hey that’s Round 1 – you take your lessons.

“We’ve got 10 to go, and we’ll get better every week I’ve got no doubt about that.”

On Skepper’s injury:

Just checking her now around her ribs, and we’ll know more soon.

On potential inclusions next week:

“I think we had seven players miss today who have all had good pre-seasons, so train well this week and get back to the selection table ahead of the Gold Coast game.

“You talk about ‘Yaz’ [Duursma] and Amelia [Velardo], they’ve both had great pre-seasons. Tarni Brown will be available next week as well, so we’ll have a really good look at that one.”