AFL SENIOR Coach Michael Voss confirmed two debutants and spoke of where the Blues have focused their energy leading into Thursday night football.

Here's what he had to say.

On how the week was addressed:

“Short [week], it's one of those weeks where we got to move forward pretty quick. We felt like we touched on the most important things and now we've got to be able to fix our eyes in on Port."

On the external noise:

"Focusing on what we can control, that's what we do first and foremost. Speculation about what's happening, we don't tend to shift our eyes to a hell of a lot.

“As I said, we're focused on the most important things, to get some correction in a couple of important areas and also reinforce some of the other things we've been doing a hell of a lot of work on to help us get the result tomorrow night."

On Round 16’s debutants:

"Billy Wilson will make his debut, which is fantastic for Billy. He's been biding his time: he hasn't been around too long, but he's a terrific young man. He's been working on his game really hard, so he's certainly earned his opportunity.

“And Flynn Young will also play his debut as well. So, to have our sixth and seventh [AFL] debutants for the year and have exposure to these young men to be able to come in and get roles done, it's a credit to them, the work they've done and also to our development team.

“The last four or five weeks, we've seen a real acceleration in a lot of these young men's careers and they've got them AFL ready - now they get their opportunity."

On Patrick Cripps being absent from training:

"He was ill today but expected to play, so he'll be right to go. He came in yesterday and he's not training because he's feeling a bit off, so we obviously don't want him around the main group."

On Jacob Weitering's availability:

"He should be right. He did a little bit yesterday, he'll finalise his prep out here today and should be available to go."

On how the Blues will structure up:

"That's always the balance you finding within the team, the input and output you get as a forward and as a ruck - what we've also found is that structurally they help you a lot. Obviously [Port] has the same consideration.

“We went with it last week, got mixed results: some good results in the ruck, but not so much as forwards. We've just got to keep trying to work on that combination to find out what works best, and Port are in the same boat."

On Carlton's game style:

“It's hard to talk down being the number one contested team in the competition.... it's in the effort indicators of this game. I don't think there'd be a team in the land that wouldn't want to be sitting in that spot, but you obviously have to balance it with other things in your game.

“What we acknowledge is that we're not that balanced profile yet. We're busily working away at it, and we've got two parts right in games and we haven't got the third one right: sometimes we've got all three right, but we haven't done it for four quarters."

“You'd be aware with contested possession, it's just not at the contest, it's obviously away from the contest as well. You run, spread and outnumber, how you use the ball, it's a fairly in-depth number that a lot goes into it. It's not about putting your head over the ball and whether you win it or not.

“It's also about how you're outnumbering contests, and we're pretty comfortable that the system we're providing is giving that exposure. What we haven't been able to do is execute it for long enough.”

On what to expect from Port:

 "I'd imagine it'd be quite a physical game. You look at Port's best and clearly their pressure around the ball is a really important part to their game - they've got some genuine power. We're going to have to aim up there, but at the same time, we're going to have to take our turn to defend hard and then obviously look for opportunities elsewhere.

"What we expect is we get Port's best. We've seen what that looks like - for us, it's about trying to combat some of those things. But largely, we have to get us right. We've spoken about different phases of the game we need to be able to spend some time in, so that's where we spend most of our energy, and we've just got to execute it better, and hopefully do it for a little bit longer."