With Victoria awash at the tail-end of Cyclone Anthony’s influence these past 24 hours, the game was reduced to two 15-minute halves. Regardless, Carlton Assistant coach John Barker said afterwards that it was important for the senior players to get out there to continue to implement the structures and strategies put in place over the pre-season period.

 

“As a coaching group we were pretty happy with the way the boys went about it,” Barker said.

 

“There were a lot of players obviously working pretty hard to secure a spot for the NAB Cup, so from that point of view it was pretty healthy. We came through relatively unscathed and that’s a tick too.”

 

Barker acknowledged the hard-working performance of Ed Curnow and the opportunistic showing of Rohan Kerr. Mitch Robinson and Rob Warnock were also amongst the better performers - Robinson with his uncompromising approach in the contests and Warnock, who made a mockery of the wet with his sure marking.

 

The Carlton team now readies for next Saturday night’s opening NAB Cup fixture against Richmond and Collingwood.