Last year's a spur: Gibbs
Carlton's Bryce Gibbs says the team will use last year's finals loss to the Lions as extra incentive this time round
Carlton went down to Fremantle by just six points on Friday night at Subiaco Oval and will now finish in eighth spot and have to either travel back to Perth to play Fremantle again or to Sydney to face the Swans next week in a do-or-die final.
Gibbs was impressed with the way the Blues held on despite losing Andrew Carrazzo early, and having few disposals and entries inside-50. Much of that was due to laying 90 tackles and he feels the strong finish will give them confidence heading into next week.
With the added incentive of making up for last year's loss at the Gabba to the Lions after leading by 28 points in the last quarter, Gibbs was already looking forward to the finals kicking off.
"Anything can happen and this time of the year is exciting. Our goal at the start of the year was to play finals after doing that last year, and now our next step as a group is to win a final - and we'll be ready to go," Gibbs said.
"We have bottled that up since last year and it really did hurt. We had a good buffer at three-quarter time and let it slip. We'll make sure we don’t make the same mistake again. With the form we've got leading into it and if we keep it going, then anything can happen."
Friday's game had a finals-like atmosphere and was a high-intensity clash, and while Gibbs was confident that the Blues would finish the stronger, the second and third quarters let them down.
"It was like a finals atmosphere and our main objective was to silence the crowd as early as possible, and we started off well but they came back at us and we gave them a bit of leeway in the second and third quarters," he said.
"Those blokes were rested and might have been a bit underdone, and we were in good form and over the last month we have run out quarters well so we always knew we were in the game. We gave it a good crack but just fell short."
Carlton came away from Perth still feeling confident that they could take it up to Fremantle if they had to come back, or to the Swans, as long as they maintained their same run and applied just as much pressure.
"What we mentioned in the team meeting after the game was that we are in good form and that's what you want leading into a finals series," Gibbs said.
"We had 90 tackles so that's a real plus for the team and hopefully we can continue that hardness into next week."