A SECOND-HALF response.

From David Teague’s point of view, that was the most pleasing aspect from the win that his Carlton side simply needed to register on Saturday afternoon.

As the Senior Coach said himself, it wasn’t a classic at the home of football, but his Blues side did what they needed to do to come away with the four points in front of a crowd of 45,741.

After having the game on their terms early, the Blues threatened to throw a healthy lead away when Hawthorn kicked two goals in the final 30 seconds of the second term.

Heading into the main break with just a three-point ascendancy, Teague put the heat onto his players at half time, and they responded in kind.

“It was as hard as I’ve went, as hard as I’ve ever gone at them… we weren’t getting our job done,” Teague said.

“It was a team message, it wasn’t one or two individual players. There were too many of us.

“There was one [instance] we showed at half time where there were probably four of us that were out there and had a chance to defend our guy with serious intent and we chose not to. Until we do that, we’re not going to be a great side.

“I wasn’t sure how it would go, but to their credit, in the second half when the ball was in there, we were strong, we didn’t get scored against and we protected the scoreboard."

The Blues restricted the Hawks to just two goals after half time, with the likes of Nic Newman and Zac Williams locking down on their opponents to stem the opposition’s scoring.

Conversely, the Blues took full advantage of their opportunities at the other end, with Marc Murphy nailing a goal on the three-quarter-time siren to open up a 19-point lead.

Reflecting on the result, Teague said it was simply a case of the Blues needing to leave the home of football with four points in tow, allowing them to focus on next week’s trip to the SCG.

“It wasn’t pretty, but these games hurt even more when you don’t win,” he said.

“I hope the players get a bit of joy and a feeling of what they did in that second half, to be able to protect the scoreboard and hit it ourselves even though we didn’t dominate the game.

“What I did love was we won that game at the start of the third, where we didn’t win the ball, we were getting beat, but we hung tough.”