THE BLUES suffered a 69-point defeat at the hands of the Roos, and Senior Coach Mathew Buck couldn't fault the away team's effort. 

Admitting the gap between the two sides was larger than he would like, he knows that a quick mindset shift is mandatory considering Carlton will travel in two days time to Adelaide to face Port Adelaide on Sunday afternoon. 

Here's what he had to say.

On the message to the group: 

"We’ve got a really quick turnaround into Port Adelaide on Sunday. We take our lessons from that game, we’re pretty understanding of the gap of where we’re at and where North Melbourne are at.

"We got taught some lessons tonight but it was straight onto what’s important from a recovery point of view and get ourselves as fresh as we can for Sunday." 

On what went wrong for the Blues:

"I think North Melbourne has great polish in their game and for us, we didn’t have that polish under some great North Melbourne pressure. Credit to them, they’re one of the great sides in the competition.

"It was a polish thing for us. We’ll go through the game, there will be moments when we think ‘that looks like a Carlton game’ and there will be moments where it didn’t and we’ll unpack those. There’s the gap and the polish that we need to get after." 

On some defensive issues mid-game: 

"We got carried away on some defensive acts, good teams will do that to you. We made the adjustments and it was great that our players did that in-game and then executed in the second half, particularly in the last quarter from the defensive aspect."

On debutants Yasmin Duursma and Meg Robertson:

"The energy they came in with was exactly what we were after. I thought they both had some great moments in their game.

"Yasmin’s split and run through the middle was great and some intercepts and Meg, her pressure and clean hands around the contest.

"It was a really great experience for them, it is a baptism of fire no doubt, but they’ll take any game they can get in a short season. I’m happy with their output." 

On the ruck dynamic:

"Celine did a little bit of ruck today as well. We’re looking for the best combination.

"It’s always something we have a talk about depending on which ruck we’re coming up against as well. That’s something that we can continue to look at and see what works best for us on the night and during the week as well." 

On Celine Moody's growth over the season:

"She’s starting to ease in and understand what we’re going after as a Carlton team.

"Her pressure and her ability to win/halve contests has been strong throughout the year and tonight I thought she added another layer with her marking and it was nice to see her hit the scoreboard."

On the prospect of Port Adelaide: 

"They were really strong in the contest. It will be a ferocious contest over there on Sunday but we can’t wait."