TAKING hold.
Carlton was challenged, but its players stood up to the task - and the occasion - in front of over 91,000 people, prevailing by 19 points over Melbourne.
Despite conceding the first four goals of the game, the Blues didn't flinch, surging on the back of a vocal Navy Blue crowd to ultimately keep their season alive ahead of an elimination final against Geelong next week.
Here's what AFL Senior Coach Josh Fraser had to say.
On embracing the occasion:
“It didn’t feel like we got spooked. It was another sign of the growth of this group where momentum is against you, but you stay connected and trust our system. I don’t like the word mature, but collectively it found like a mature performance, particularly in that first quarter.
“Our players are growing in different scenarios and finding different ways to win, they embrace everything that’s thrown at them. From the coaches’ box, we didn’t feel flustered: there were parts of our game early that we thought was the right way to play, we weren’t connecting with some fundamentals and made some errors which you have to embrace in a final. Our boys did a good job of that.”
On a widespread team performance:
“It’s something we’ve gone to work on. Maybe historically, there’s been some players who have felt like they’ve had to do everything - the intent is fine, but it’s misguided. In actual fact, you’ve got to be so reliable in your role and trust the guy next to you to get his job done.
“I thought we had a really even spread of contributors tonight, and I think that’s been our story for large parts of 14-15 weeks. We’re not reliant on one or two… absolutely, guys will stand up and have very good games, but the load is shared and spread. So is the ownership. Players are doing a fantastic job owning it.”
On a strong defensive showing, conceding a season-low 55 points:
“Part of our planning was acknowledging how good Melbourne are and the speed they put on the ball. They’ve been one of the great teams to watch over the course of the season with how quickly they can put a score on the board, so we knew we had to be defensively sound. That’s been a strong part of our game, Ash Hansen has done a great job driving our education and defensive intent and method.
“You need a collective buy-in, and through all lines, we were well-connected defensively. For large parts of the game, we took away what they wanted, which is a challenge because they often double down and test you in other areas. They’ve had an incredible season and there were lots of threats we had to nullify tonight: being able to stop their ball movement was one of them.”
On taking a moment to enjoy it:
“Not so much ride the rollercoaster: tonight presented an opportunity with the players and some staff to not so much take a breath, but just enjoy it for a minute. The rooms felt incredible with our family and friends and so many people connected to the Club. We had incredible support with the crowd, they keep turning up and giving us great energy.
“I said to the players, they should understand what performances like that do to so many people and for so many people that are connected to the Club. They’re important. That moment to enjoy it for a minute was important, and now we get back to work.”
On embracing everything:
“I haven’t looked back. My thought process at the start was how do we position the Club better moving forward. In many ways, that’s still the case. Tonight was a different challenge and we found a different way. We’re embracing the next opportunity to take on an opponent and test ourselves on where we’re at. We’re not in a position to get too carried away, nobody inside the Club is of that mindset or those behaviours.
“It’s so process-oriented, which I love. We’re trying to be better every day we’re at the Club, and we’re trying to continue to put a brand of football on the field that our supporters can identify with - that regardless of result, we can walk away and say ‘That looked like a Carlton game’.”
On young players stepping up:
“Nope. I got asked that during the week, I thought they’d be fine. I’ve got the luxury of seeing them day-to-day and knowing their character. They’re mature beyond their years with the way they play, and their understanding of what they have to do within their roles. They’re so well-coached by our playing group.”
On Cooper Lord’s role on Kozzie Pickett:
“Young player, big task. Talking about the threats we had to try and nullify, Kozzie was one. I thought Coop did a great job, he was well-supported by guys around him but he stuck to his task.
“He’s a very team-oriented guy and I thought over the course of the four quarters was able to nullify Kozzie as much as he could. It’s hard to stop a great player like that all the time, but I thought Coop did a great job.
“The Pitto-Max Gawn match-up, I thought Pitto was excellent for us. He’s been so reliable and a great competitor. They’re two threats we had to try and nullify, and those two guys did a great job.”
On negating Max Gawn’s impact:
“Ideally, we weren’t kicking it to him often, because of how good he is in the air. We had to find another way, and sometimes that presented for us and other times it didn’t. When we had to go down the line, we got a pretty good contest. The players’ ability to keep working to provide that option to get the ball offline and try to go around Max, and then going inside 50 with our ability to lower our eyes at the right time… it wasn’t perfect.
“There were times in the game it frustrated myself and the other coaches, but it was the ability for the players to embrace the imperfection of that, still understand our method and persist.”
On Patrick Cripps leaving the ground in the third term:
“He’s fine. He’s a guy who I think his game looks as good as ever - it might not show on the stats sheet, but the role he plays for others, he’s leading incredibly well. I’m not sure what he finished with tonight, but some really important moments through pressure and setting up other guys around him.
“I thought he was terrific.”
On sticking to process;
“I thought it was a continuation of what we’ve been doing. At no stage did we look like we were phased by not having the momentum. The resilience attached to that is important, the players looked really calm and collected. We train a lot of different things around that as well, we’re not turning up hoping that’s the case - we put a lot of time and effort into it.
“We’re not a finished product, we were able to do it tonight and then you face a different challenge against Geelong next week. At some stage in that game, we’re going to have to be as resilient as we were tonight.”
On Ollie Hollands’ showing:
“This year in a football sense has provided a lot of challenges for Ollie. I can speak to his character, he turns up wanting to grow his game - maybe there’s disappointment of not being in the team and going back to the VFL, but he turns up with the right mindset and attitude and gets to work on his game.
“We’ve had a high level of confidence to bring him in at the right time to play a role. The reality for him is there’s been guys in the team that have been performing, that’s been the challenge for a lot of guys in the VFL. Ollie in particular has shown a lot of resilience and character.”
On moving onto the next:
“Pretty quickly. Tomorrow we’ll start to pull the game apart and be ready for Monday and prepare as well as we can. Preparation won’t be an excuse for next weekend, against a team that has been a benchmark for a long period of time.”
On leaning on the last time the Blues met the Cats:
“Maybe in parts, maybe we’re a bit of a different team to what we were then. I feel confident each week knowing what we’re up against, but it’s one thing knowing it and it’s another thing stopping it. That’ll test us.
“I feel like our game is in pretty good order at the moment, we’re finding different ways to play against different opponents.”
On Will Hayward’s potential availability:
“I’d love to think he’s in a position to be selected. He was close, he did a power of work to get himself to a position where he was close. I’d expect him to be a bit closer next week, we’ll see what that looks like.”
On Nick Haynes:
“He had a slight tweak of his ankle. You talk about resilience, that guy’s courage is off the charts. He played such an important role for us under a little bit of duress. We’d expect that to settle pretty quickly.”
On Matthew Cottrell hitting the post three times:
“Talk about embracing imperfection and some frustration, we found the post a little bit. It’s all part of it. The game looked good for us and we burned some chances, you have to stay in the moment and find another way. Hopefully the posters are out the window.”
