Carlton senior coach Michael Voss has lamented his squad's lack of intensity and plethora of defensive errors against Collingwood on Friday night as the Blues' deficit ballooned out to as much as 60 points.
The Blues missed a number of crucial tackles in key contests, finishing with 46 tackles for the match, well below their season average of 64.8. They also laid just two tackles inside 50, a season low.
Collingwood were the complete opposite, scoring 72 points from turnovers and winning the contested possession battle by 18 (135-117).
Despite missing Lachie Schultz, who ranks second in the AFL for inside 50 tackles with 2.6 per game, the Magpies managed 13 tackles inside 50 too.
"We had some good patches of play early and some good opportunities presented... but the game doesn't ask you to do it for 30 minutes," Voss said post-game.
"[Collingwood] gave us a masterclass in contest really. We lost some really critical territory on the ground and on the other side we weren't good enough to use the ball back the other way. It put us under enormous pressure and we weren't able to work our way through that."
"The most concerning part of tonight was our missed tackles, aerial contests lost and we didn't defend behind the ball. When the ball was turned over we weren't sharp enough in our reactions and they kicked 70 points off transition, four goals from centre square bounces.
"We've had a year where we've been able to defend behind the ball really well. It's given our backs an opportunity to defend the ball but we couldn't collectively get that done today.
"You can handle the disappointment if there's breakdowns in offense. Our game is made up of imperfection. But what you need out of imperfection is a response and our response wasn't sharp enough on that. Collingwood were able to maximise too many opportunities and they also capitalised on some critical contests."
Voss was seen having an animated conversation with Carlton's leadership group at three-quarter time, notably Patrick Cripps, Jacob Weitering and Charlie Curnow, which he said aimed to elicit a response for the club to build on for Round 18.
"[The conversation] was about what standards we accept and what standards are we accepting from one another right now," Voss said.
"What feedback do we actually give to one another and how direct do we need to give it? There's a sense of urgency in that moment to be able to correct and we weren't able to do that.
"We didn't get those actions through the middle part of the game and it really let us down. It let us down the week before and it did this week as well.
"It's clear we need to be able to have some pretty important conversations. We let our club down tonight.
"We want our supporters to be proud of us and we didn't do that tonight. There's an expectation for the way we want to play and we didn't do that tonight. That's something we have to sit with.
"We're not going to avoid that conversation, we'll have to cop our whack, we have to cop it. We can't tolerate that, it was a really poor performance."
With the 56-point loss, the Blues slip to a 6-10 record and could fall to 13th if Sydney and Essendon register wins this weekend. Next up is another top four side, the Brisbane Lions, in a Thursday night clash at Marvel Stadium.
