All eyes were on Carlton's press conference on Thursday night after the Blues suffered yet another loss in 2025 as the pressure continues to rise on coach Michael Voss' tenure at the helm.
With a list built for the now, Carlton supporters anticipated another finals appearance this season following a preliminary final showing in 2023, and holding a top-two spot on the ladder over halfway through last year.
But the Blues have crumbled this season, beginning 0-4 and now could sit three wins outside the eight after Round 16. To add to Carlton's pain, just one of their wins since Round 15 in 2024 has been against a top-eight side, while the club has also conceded defeat to cellar-dwelling sides Richmond and North Melbourne this year.
Following their loss to the Kangaroos, the Blues were in need of a big response but failed to deliver from the jumpstart on Thursday. Conceding the first eight majors of the match, the Blues were stuck playing catch-up footy for the rest of the night against the Power, and only narrowly avoided a goalless first half.
"Yes, it was a bad performance. Certainly at the start of the game when you want to get ascendancy, especially away from home," Voss said post-game.
"We've been good at that for, well, pretty much the whole year, getting our starts right, but we got that wrong.
"Just didn't come with an appetite to the contest. They were able to sort of go from inside out really quickly, and they were able to control the ball more than they should, and we didn't work quick enough in our response. And then being untidy with the ball out of the back half gave even more opportunities back to them. But bad kicking's bad footy. We certainly had opportunities in front of goal, and sometimes we hit the scoreboard, sometimes we kicked it out in the full. We should have been better than that.
"Port had no advantage (with both clubs off a five-day break) so we should have come out better, and they bounced out of the blocks a lot harder, and their pressure was a lot better than what we were and all the things that we want to be able to value in our game, and we just didn't bring it at the start. We just couldn't do it."
The form lapse at the beginning of the contest is the second consecutive misfire from the Blues, but goes against the trend seen this season where Carlton have had second-half fadeouts.
It's hence why Voss called the strugglesome start "unlike" the Blues, despite the loss being one of many disappointing outcomes this season.
The loss now creates even more uncertainty about Voss' future, but the former premiership Lions player has called for a unified approach in the club's trying times.
It follows the same sentiment captain Patrick Cripps maintained earlier in the week ahead of the must-win Power clash.
"It's collective accountability. There's no separating groups here," Voss said.
"It's 100 per cent on what we need to be able to bring to it. We always look at ourselves first, and then you obviously impart some of the things that we need to be able to put in front of the players and ask them to be able to play the standard as well.
"This is collective accountability. So we'll look at it. We'll look at it thoroughly and see where we need to correct."
Voss continued to defend his position as coach, holding firm that he is the right man for the role despite Carlton taking a step back in performance this season.
"It's going to be hard to probably understand this, but when you look at the results and the shift we've had in our game style this year, there's been a genuine shift in our numbers, and in a really good way," Voss said.
"We were 14th for forward of centres last year, we're now third. We're third for inside 50s in the competition, we move the ball end to end one of the best teams in the competition. I could rattle off a lot off - clearance-wise we score, we don't get scored against the stoppage. Yet, all those things today, we weren't able to stop. We got scored on from stoppages. We gave away marks. We couldn't build the contest and the pressure around the ball, so we had to find other ways to be able to try and score.
"But that doesn't leave me in any doubt, any doubt whatsoever, about what we're trying to create here.
"We're absolutely disappointed. But the way, the way through this, is not to isolate. It's coming together. If there's one thing I know about working through really tough times, it's how we connect.
"What we won't do, you will not see us do, is pass blame on anyone. So what we will do is sit here and we'll say, 'What's my role in this?' We'll get to work hard on that, but we need everyone on board with this, and so that's the way we'll approach it."
The Blues now fall to 6-9 on the season, and have a challenging fortnight ahead, facing current top-two sides Collingwood and Brisbane in Rounds 17 and 18.
