‘We will look at all those moments’: Michael Voss rues late mistakes

Carlton coach Michael Voss says his side will carefully look at where they could have finished Richmond in the dying moments.

Lewis Young consoles Blake Acres after his crucial dropped mark in the dying seconds of Carlton’s draw with Richmond. Picture: Dylan Burns/AFL Photos

Michael Voss says despite positives from Carlton’s effort in keeping Richmond to a draw, the Blues could not “skip over” crucial late errors that cost them two premiership points.

A turnover deep in Blues’ forward line which resulted in the levelling goal to Tom Lynch, and a clumsy dropped mark from Blake Acres which would have allowed him to take an easy set shot for one point after the siren left were among several moments Carlton would wish it could take back.

Despite being resoundingly beaten 45-66 in inside 50s, with the Tigers able to retain the ball far more easily in their forward half, Voss said the manner in which the Blues withstood their pressure and held a late lead meant the draw was frustrating.

“There’s a lot in it to be proud of, to be honest. And then there’s some other parts where you’re just sort of like, ‘gee, I wish I had that back’,” the Carlton coach said.

Voss says key defender Lewis Young’s development has been ‘steep’ and a source of surprise for the Blues coaching staff. Picture: Michael Klein

“From a situation of a draw, you probably walk away and think well we should have won that, but we would have had to win a completely different way from what we’ve been used to.

“We touched on that with the playing group at the end … that’s something to like, a big like, because we’ve gone to work on a lot of aspects of our game.”

Voss said the Carlton side of 2022 would have lost the game by six goals, praising the Blues’ defensive resilience, but he conceded some costly passages of play in the dying moments could not be ignored.

“We’ll go over it, I mean we can’t skip over it – we’re about improvement,” he said.

“We will look at all those moments and see where we can get better, that’s not something we’ll step away from.

Ed Curnow was sent to Dion Prestia in the final quarter with great effect, limiting the clearance king to one disposal after he had 22 at the final break. Picture: Daniel Pockett/Getty Images

“We were holding for five minutes, maybe even six and a half minutes against the tide … we’ve got to look at that too and acknowledge what was there.”

The stellar performance of Lewis Young, who had 20 possessions and 14 intercepts as he limited Jack Riewoldt to one goal, was an example of how much the key defender was “growing”, Voss said.

“He’s caught us by surprise a little bit, I hope he doesn’t mind me saying that but his development has been really steep,” he said.

“He’s winning more battles, and he’s playing against a pretty good opponent and he was put under stress a fair bit because that ball was coming down fast a few times.”

Voss praised the tagging effort of Ed Curnow after the Blues veteran was moved to Dion Prestia in the final quarter and clamped down, keeping him to just a sole disposal.

Originally published as ‘We will look at all those moments’: Michael Voss rues late mistakes