SENIOR Coach David Teague spoke to the media ahead of Carlton's Round 19 game against North Melbourne. 

Here's what he had to say.

Charlie Curnow's return to the senior team: 

“It depends on how he performs and how he pulls up, but he won’t play AFL this week. At this stage it’s tracking well. He looked good last week and it was great to see him back out there playing.” 

Plan to increase Charlie's minutes in the coming weeks: 

“That’s the plan, we’ll slowly increase. I’ve got a lot of trust in our high-performance and medical team, they will control the amount of game time. Once his form is to a state that’s good enough to play AFL, it’ll then be whether his body can handle the intensity of AFL. There are quite a few factors that come into it, but we’re not going rush it. Charlie’s well-being and health is our priority. If at some stage that’s in a condition to play AFL Footy and help the team, then we’ll select him.” 

“He looked ok last week. He’s done a lot of training, that’s probably the thing that people haven’t seen. We’re not going to rush him - we’re definitely not going to do that. If he comes into the AFL side, he’s got to come in and play a role and help the team. He’s no certainty to come in at any stage. If things progress well, then we’ll play him. If not, we’ll protect him whether it’s from a body point of view or a form point of view.” 

Patrick Cripps' availability this week:

“He seems really good at this stage. He’ll train today and as long as he gets through training today then he should play this weekend.” 

Marc Murphy's availability this week: 

“He’ll train today - he’s a test as well. We’ll have a look at how he trains and then we’ll have a look at what his loads have been like over the last couple of weeks. That’ll probably impact his availability this week.” 

Young midfielders rising to the occasion: 

“We had some other guys who got the opportunity and stood up and they’ve been working really hard. Guys like Matthew Kennedy, Paddy Dow - they’ve had to spend time in our VFL program to upskill themselves so they could come out and take on that mantle and take on that responsibility. We’re really excited. What we do love is the ability for guys, when the opportunities arise, to step up and be ready to go. We’ve still got some guys at the moment in our VFL program that our putting their hands up and are trying to break into the senior side.” 

Sam Walsh as the best young player Teague has coached:

“I love the person that he is, I love the way he goes about it. His willingness to buy into the team and to play his role. Being a number one draft pick and probably always being touted as being the best, his ability to execute his role and do what the team requires of him. At times we’ve pushed him out to the wing, we’ve pushed him out to half-forward and I know he’d love to play inside but he always puts his hand up and says that he’ll do anything for the team. That’s probably the area that I’ve loved most about his games.” 

Ed Curnow’s milestone game and importance to the Club: 

“He’s a great person. His family - they’re a beautiful family. They’re very caring and very thoughtful of others. Ed’s journey is a great journey for a lot of players out there. Drafted, delisted, worked his way back in, broke his leg, got on a list, become a tagger, there are so many different chapters to his story. I think it’s great. The one I love, he’s probably a one or two time Club person of the year, I think that in itself is an indication of who he is. He cares about others, he puts the Club and the team first and he’s been great for this footy club and it’s great to see him get to 200 games because it hasn’t been easy and he’s worked really hard. That’s probably the one thing; Anyone who knows him knows how hard he works on his game and on his craft. I know our boys love him. He’s quite annoying too, let’s not forget that. He can annoy the living daylights out of all his teammates, but they love the way he does it.” 

“I don’t mind him annoying me. I’m quite comfortable if Ed Curnow is annoying me.” 

Harry McKay and potential match-up on brother Ben: 

“North Melbourne will make those selections, but that could occur. Harry is such a professional player, he’ll go out there - regardless of who the opponent is, he wants to be the the best he can be and play his role for the team. This week is no different. I think there’s a great story from an external point of view but, for Harry, it’ll be a player in an opposition jumper that he wants to beat and play his role. I think he enjoys playing at Marvel Stadium so it’ll be good to see him out there. We just need to make sure that we get the delivery down there to him and give some chances one-on-one.” 

On North Melbourne’s form: 

“I think it’s been great. I’m not going to lie, being a former shinboner I keep an eye on them and want them to do well - not this week, sorry all the Shinboner fans. I think David Noble has done a great job. Obviously, they were hit by injuries at the start of the year and they’ve started to get some of their more experienced players back, but then you see the growth of the younger guys and the way that they’re playing. It’s going to be a great challenge for us. They’re in great form and we need to make sure that we continue to focus on what we can control and continue to grow. We’ve got some areas of our game that we want to get better and this week’s another chance to go out there and improve and that’s what we want to do.” 

Carlton’s form leading into the game: 

“We’re starting to play a little bit more consistently, especially with our defence. Our offence is probably something that can continue to improve a little bit, it’s probably dropped away. I think we’ve been a little bit more consistent with our execution over the last five weeks. It’s a work in progress, we’ve still got a lot of areas to grow and improve but, the guys attitudes and the way they’re going about it, their buy in, particularly buying into the team aspect is something that I’ve been really pleased with.” 

Tom De Koning’s development and challenge this week: 

“Tom’s been really good for us and Jack’s ability to go in their and compete - we know the passion and competitiveness that he plays with. They’re both very important. Tom’s had some big challenges and, as a ruckman, most weeks you get big challenges. Last week he had Brodie Grundy and this week he gets Todd Goldstein - it doesn’t get any easier. He looks forward to it, he’s been dying to get that opportunity to be our number one ruckman and he’s grabbed it at the moment. He’s playing some really nice football and he’s working really hard on his game. He wants to get better and he understands that he’s still got a lot of growth in him and he’ll keep working hard on that.”