Carlton vs. West Coast Eagles Round 14: Carlton finds answer in attack after costly win
They got the four points, but that was about the only positive Michael Voss and the Blues were able to take out of their win over the Eagles, with yet another second-half fade out.
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Carlton coach Michael Voss said there are familiarities in the way his team is consistently losing second halves of games.
But despite again being outscored after half time by West Coast on Sunday, he said he’s satisfied with the 34-point win, the Blues sixth win for the season.
Carlton jumped West Coast at Optus Stadium, kicking nine of the first 10 goals. They turned a 39-point quarter-time lead, into a 57-point advantage midway through the second quarter.
But the home side got going and started to half the contest from midway through that second term.
The Eagles kicked six of the last eight goals of the game.
Voss said he’d take the four points.
“Yeah, there’s some familiarity to it. Yeah, a familiar tale,” he said.
“I guess the challenge will be, look at the positivity of the way that we play, and what puts us in those positions, and that’s what we’ll probably tend to focus on.
“If you strip it all back, you’re coming away to a venue, you’re playing against an opposition that’s been in pretty good form for the first half of the year.
“We had a very, very dominant first half, and we’re obviously able to play out the game with some challenges, and not exactly the way we’d want to finish the game.
“But we get the result, and that’s an important four points.”
Those challenges were injuries to Sam Walsh in the days leading to the clash and key forwards Charlie and Hudson O’Keefe during it,
Add to that, the absence of Harry McKay and Voss did have issues with personnel.
He was without a second ruck to help Tom De Koning. And Mitch McGovern was left as the main key target in attack.
The result was the Blues lost their ninth second half for the season, this time to the competition’s bottom side.
When the two sides met earlier in the year, the Blues demolished West Coast, by 71 points. Carlton won all four quarters.
On Sunday, they won two, losing both after half-time. The Blues have won only seven quarters after half-time all season.
Voss said that fatigue is not the issue.
“Yeah, look, it’s intensity on the game,” he said.
“We obviously weren’t able to continue to play at the same intensity.
“It’s not a fatigue thing. It’s just, are we still valuing the right things? Does the scoreboard actually matter?
“And we’ll dig into that, but what we’ll also do is make sure that we put up in lights exactly what we want to play like, and what are the behaviours that we need that support us.
“So our challenge will be, how do we sustain that? Because we’re not right now, so we need to be able to stay in that for longer than what we are, but it’s not because the players won’t have a really clear picture on what works.
“We’ve got that clear picture, but clearly we’re obviously not playing it for long enough.”
BLUES FIND UNLIKELY FORWARD SAVIOUR AS INJURIES MOUNT
Carlton’s injury problems intensified during its visit to Perth in round 14.
Calf tightness for key forward Charlie Curnow was the cost of a 34-point win over West Coast at Optus Stadium on Sunday.
The Blues dual Coleman medallist sat on the bench for the last eight minutes of the second quarter and was subbed out of the game at half-time.
He’d kicked only one goal before leaving the game, but Carlton was already 57 points in front. The Blues won an uninspiring game, 12.14 (86) to 7.10 (52).
Any extended time on the sidelines for Curnow is a concern for Michael Voss and Carlton, with no date yet put to Harry McKay’s return from a knee injury either.
Midfielder Sam Walsh also missed the win against the Eagles and is expected to be out for up to six weeks with a foot injury.
BLUES FIND SHORT-TERM SOLUTION
Mitch McGovern looks like the short-term answer for the Blues in attack.
He looked good, taking four marks and kicking three goals.
Hudson O’Keefe found his second run a bit more difficult and ended the game on the bench with ice on his hamstring, adding to Carlton’s key forward concerns.
Lachie Fogarty kicked three goals in the opening term, to give the Blues their best first term for the season, 7.4.
But the Blues again struggled after half-time, outscored 4.3 to 2.6 by the bottom side.
Carlton led at half-time for the 11th time in 13 games in 2025.
However, the Eagles won both second-half terms.
So, for the ninth time in 2025, the Blues were outscored after half-time.
They have won only seven quarters after half-time over 13 games this season.
TOM WHO?
The Eagles have found a player in debutant Tom McCarthy.
He was the player that got the home side going after quarter time.
Most of the Eagles fans watching the game would have had to look at the team lit to see who he was.
Three weeks ago, he was playing for Richmond in the VFL, where he averaged 23 touches a game, before being taken by the Eagles with the first pick in the mid-season draft.
Played two decent games in the WAFL before finally making his AFL debut.
He finished with 31 possessions, the first Eagle to reach 30 touches in a game this season.
McCarthy was one of three mid-season draftees on the ground for West Coast, along with Ryan Maric (2023) and Jack Hutchinson (2024).
Carlton also had Cooper Lord in its team, who the Blues picked up as a 2024 mid-season selection.
IMPROVED FROM ‘PATHETIC’
Trailing by 39 points at quarter-time, West Coast coach Andrew McQualter told Fox Sports that his side was “pathetic in the contest”.
It was a fair summation.
Carlton is the number one side in the competition for contested possession, while the Eagles the 18th ranked side for the same category.
And the first term played out that way, the Blues with an advantage of 20 in that key statistic at quarter-time.
"We were pathetic in the contest!"
— Fox Footy (@FOXFOOTY) June 15, 2025
Andrew McQualter did not mince his words!
📺 Watch #AFLEaglesBlues on ch. 504 or stream on Kayo: https://t.co/bBrK1ZS4kV
âœï¸ BLOG https://t.co/S0nFyYOl8k
🔢 MATCH CENTRE https://t.co/jsGcRh4SqNpic.twitter.com/ZQ17kKYFEB
McQualter’s quarter-time message was heard clearly by his players. The Eagles pulled it back a bit in the second quarter.
While Carlton extended its lead to 57 points at half-time, they won the contested possession count in the second term by seven.
It ended up 139-127 in Carlton’s favour.
The sight of captain Oscar Allen being helped from the ground, with what looked like a knee injury, doesn’t fare well for the Eagles for the remainder of the season though.
Originally published as Carlton vs. West Coast Eagles Round 14: Carlton finds answer in attack after costly win
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