YOU COULD be forgiven for thinking that the coach of a team that had just put 23 goals on the board, including 13 to two in the second half, would have been waxing lyrical about the potency of his forward line, the slickness of his midfield.

But Brett Ratten's first instinct when talking about Carlton's thumping 91-point drubbing of the Brisbane Lions on Thursday night was to focus on his team’s defensive effort and their ability to minimalise scoreboard damage at one end while inflicting plenty of pain at the other.

The mode of the Blues' victory was made even more remarkable considering the Lions kicked six of their nine goals to quarter time and held a two-point lead at the first change.

"When the opposition scores three goals [after quarter time], I thought that was brilliant from us, especially from a team defence point of view," Ratten said.

"Our defence stood up really well. I thought Henderson and Bower and Laidler and all those blokes did a fantastic job of really straightening us up and really protecting the scoreboard."

Of course, a pretty classy midfield helps, especially when they dominate the opposition to the tune of 67 to 41 inside-50s.

Ratten singled out some usual suspects - the sublime duo of Chris Judd and Marc Murphy foremost amongst them - but reiterated the theme of evenness so evident in his team's resounding win.

"You have Scotland and Simpson off wings, and Carrazzo's role on Black was first-class," he said.

"Black's a great player, a champion of the game and you can't stop that fella. But Carrazzo stopped his influence on the game, which is pretty hard to do”"

Part of that midfield, Kade Simpson, admitted that is was sometimes easy to sit back and spectate when Judd and Murphy displayed the kind of form they did against the Lions.

Simpson didn't exactly have a lean night, gathering 23 touches and scoring two goals, but enjoyed the Judd and Murphy show as much as the fee-paying public.

"Sometimes I just sit back and watch Murph and Juddy go about their business," he said.

"Tonight they were exceptional."

Another fine contributor was Jarrad Waite, whose seven scoring shots highlighted not only his potential as a forward weapon but Carlton's depth of scoring options.

"He showed signs last week and to kick 5.2 was really encouraging," Ratten said of his occasionally enigmatic forward.

"Last week, Shaun [Hampson] was our dominant big man forward down there and this week Jarrad was. Hopefully we don't become predictable and have to rely on him all the time."

But it was the other end of the ground that clearly occupied the coach's post-game thoughts.

"History would say the best defensive team has the greatest success at the end of the year. We think that if we can defend first and then attack we'll get our reward," Ratten said.

"If we can make sure we can keep the opposition to the numbers we are chasing … we're going to be hard to beat."

On tonight’s evidence, most would agree.

The views in this article are those of the author and not necessarily those of the AFL or its clubs