THE NEED to respond.
On the back of a disappointing loss and another big occasion coming up, Michael Voss has challenged his side to bring their weapons and answer in kind as Carlton prepares for a Friday night clash with St Kilda at the MCG.
Dispelling any concerns about Charlie Curnow and with positive news about Jack Silvagni, this is what he had to say.
On Charlie Curnow’s availability:
“Good. He’ll be fine [to play].
“The last 30 seconds of the drill, him and Tom had a nice little collision - it’s not exactly what you want to see! But they’re both fine.”
On Jack Silvagni:
“Good, he should be available. He trained yesterday and he looks like he’s ready to go.”
On team dynamics this week:
“We went a bit smaller last week, we ended up playing Lewis through the game and flipped him forward. We went a little bit smaller, the impact of their medium-sizers was something we were having a bit of an issue with throughout the game.
“Over the last month, the recent form says we’ve been going okay - we let ourselves down last week. It was a disappointing performance: in some ways, it’s taking the opportunity to be able to reset what works for us and reinforce the level of planning and detail we need, the strengths we need to be able to bring to the game. It was difficult where to start and finish, because all three phases never came together at all during the game which made it particularly challenging.”
On reviewing the game following a big loss:
“You learn just as much out of what doesn’t work than what does work. We’ve had enough over the last three weeks to see what has worked: every opposition is coming in doing their planning and homework, and they got more of it their way.
“It started around the contest where we lost territory - the competition is tough, so if you’re losing territory enough, it makes it hard to win the game from the back half all the time. You don’t need to be dominating, but you want an even contest to get even looks. Our midfield has been pretty strong throughout the year, but we lowered our colours on the weekend.”
On what the team went after this week:
“It’s difficult where to start and finish, it didn’t feel like the effort was where it needed to be to give ourselves that chance. When you chase the game, there are important moments within that that we’d like to have back to get into half time to know you have a throw at the stumps. It was hard work for most of the day.
“We’ve addressed it, we’ve looked at it and now we’ve activated it to try and train and reinforce the things we want to take into this game. Sometimes they’re really simple things, and we weren’t able to get that done.”
On an effort gap being the most disappointing thing for a coach:
“Yeah, it does. That’s the disappointing nature of it. That’s where we take our form from, the last month - and that’s what makes it more disappointing, because we’ve made a lot of ground in a lot of areas. We weren’t able to get that done on the weekend. We’re looking for a response, and hopefully the boys can go out and respond as we expect them to.”
On competing in Spud’s Game:
“If we talk to the game itself and ‘Spud’, there’s a significant meaning in behind this game for the Club. We’re obviously privileged that we’ve been chosen to play in this game, it’s an important game to St Kilda. There’s an important cause in behind it, but there’s also a person that has meant a lot to the St Kilda Football Club.
“We’ve been fortunate in the early parts of this year that we’ve been brought along on these journeys: the Royal Children’s Hospital is one we’re really proud to be part of, the Peter Mac Cup is one we’ve been really proud to be part of. Likewise with Spud’s Game - it’s our first one, and we’re looking forward to playing in front of a big crowd in a pretty important moment.”
On the threat St Kilda poses:
“The main thing I saw from them was their pressure, they were able to get important clearances. We know they set up really strong defensively behind the ball, they’re going to be two important things. We expect there’ll be a lot of numbers around the ball and it’ll be hard to score. We’ll have to be patient and wait for an opportunity.”
On the dual threat of Jack Sinclair and Nasiah Wanganeen-Milera:
“I don’t think you can take all of it off the table, it’s where you rely on your system to help with that. Small forwards will definitely have their hands full, which is only one part of the game on how you take that off the table for them. They’re obviously very important players, they’ve got a few of them.
“It’s a bit about them, but it’s a lot about us. Off the back of last week, we’ve seen when we don’t get our system in play and we’re not bringing the effort around contest, it’s a hard day. We’ll look to get that right first.”
On a potential return of State of Origin:
“Any opportunity that our players get to represent something is worthwhile doing. This year we had the Indigenous game, and it was really important to Zaccy and ‘Mots’ to be part of that - we embraced their journey as a football club. If there are players that get to play in the State of Origin game, they are special games to play in.
“There’s clearly a fair bit to play out about who it is and when it is played, but in principle, we’d be hugely supportive of it - they’re life experiences and as a football club, we want to be able to have special memories. We want to do that in the context of how we play our season and share them together, but then there’ll be players that have their own memories they want to create: if they deserve a spot in that team, we’ll back that in as a football club.”
