On the loss...

“We lead for lots of the day and put ourselves in a position where we shouldn’t have lost. We weren’t strong enough at the end when it counted the most – and Carlton, to their credit, wheeled themselves over the line.

“Both sides wouldn’t go away saying we played great football at any lengths, but at crucial times and in crucial moments they were able to get it done. Their leaders stood up for them at the right time.

“As we’ve seen today, some parts of our game – when we’re up and running – are ok, but it’s just inconsistent. And when you’re like that, you end up 4 and 4 – surprise, surprise. That’s probably where we’re at at the moment – a 50/50 footy team. We haven’t been able to get there and I’m not going to hide from that.”

On his half-time spiel...

“I talked about our ability to take first option at times - where we were letting ourselves down. We had opportunities and we just weren’t executing it at the level at we’re expected to. And that’s unacceptable for AFL football; to miss those chances.”

On Jacko in the ruck ...

“It’s a big job he’s been asked to do, but so is Kreuzer – they’re both going one-on-one so they’ve both probably got a big job to do – but he was solid in the ruck.

"We haven’t got our rucks available to us at the moment. Every side has their issues and one of our issues at the moment is clearly that we haven’t got a ruckman. It’s pretty significant, but I thought Jacko battled pretty hard for us.”

On the skipper...

“Trav’s not playing ripping footy. There’s nothing wrong with him, I don’t know how many times I can say it. Travis is just not in form consistently. He’s been building up - the last few weeks he’s been better for us – but today, he wasn’t on his aim and he didn’t have a great game.”

On coming back next week... 

“We say it every week – we know how tough the competition is…you’ve just got to be prepared to learn from it and keep pushing forward, keep trying to challenge the problems that you know are in your club at the time.

“They [West Coast] are a significant test but every week it’s a significant test for us. We’ll go back to work, we’ll work really hard to find and try a way to overcome some of his [Nic Natanui's] ability and they’ll have to find out some way to overcome some of the stuff that we’ll challenge them with.”