There are plenty of positives to be taken from Thursday night’s heartbreaking five-point loss to Fremantle, according to Carlton development coach Michael Osborne.
The Blues went ahead late in the final term but were eventually overrun by the fourth-placed Dockers.
Osborne says while the Blues had their chances to snatch victory in the West, Carlton fans can be pleased that the team gave their all.
“There were good signs there, the boys showed great intensity. To just pressure them and be there abouts for the whole four quarters was a really good sign,” Osborne said.
“In those tight losses, you want to see the effort there, and we did. But it’s disappointing that a few errors throughout the whole game ended up costing us the win by such a small margin.”
Carlton has now lost five matches this season by eight points or less, with Thursday night’s loss rating as one of the better performances from the Blues this year.
“I think there’s been very few games where we’ve been blown out of the water and some of our better games this year have been losses against top four sides,” Osborne said.
“It’s good to see that not only can we restrict the really good teams but we can score against them as well, so in those tight losses there have been some very encouraging signs.”
Carlton has a nine-day break between matches before tackling the Gold Coast Suns at Etihad Stadium this Saturday afternoon.
It will give Chris Judd some extra time to recover after his sustained a light ankle injury during the Fremantle match.
Osborne expects Judd will be fit to face the Suns.
“I think he will be alright, the bigger break will definitely help. It is nothing too serious so he should be up and about,” Osborne said.
“Hopefully we’ll get some good recovery in with the longer break and we’ll be able to train a bit more than we normally could have.”
