The downside of tonight was Hayden Ballantyne’s hamstring injury. How long are we looking at?
Hayden is disappointed. He was really coming along and looking cherry ripe. We’re waiting on scans but he feels like his hamstring is relatively normal. We’re probably looking at three to four weeks, which will probably exclude him from round one.

On the better side of things, Cam McCarthy kicked six goals tonight.
In terms of individual performances, (McCarthy’s) was a strong performance. I think he got on the end of a few. Around the ball he probably over-finessed a bit but he scored really well on the possession gain and entries. Kicking was good. Our clearance work – as much we had some opportunities, (Carlton) had more opportunities than what we would like. It’s been two wins in a row so we’ll have a look at that. We’ve got an idea of the mechanics why and there are different parts to that. That’s probably the simple analysis.

The fact that you’ve been getting all these opportunities, does that come down to your ball use?
No I think it was from stoppages. Possession game, they kicked six goals to five. You’d be pretty happy with that if out of 17 entries we kicked ten goals to eight. It’s a significant difference. You want to win that battle. It was because of the stoppages, not so much ball use. Fundamentally, a few times they got out a few different ways and we’ll have a look at that. Was it our forwards, our midfielders, our backs – probably a combination of everything but now it’s been two wins in a row in the same areas of ground pretty much. I’d rather have that problem than possession gain issues.

Just looking at your pre-season as a whole, how do you rate it and how do you think you are heading into round one?
It’s hard to put a number around it. We know there’s been good spirit and we’ve worked really hard. Short week – I think we handled that okay. Some players that have missed some long periods have got good minutes into them. Fyfe, Johnson and McCarthy - they’re coming to hand and our recruits have been good for us like Hamling and Kersten. Our players that we invested in last year are really continuing to grow, I thought Langdon and Blakely did some nice things as did Lachie Weller. Jon Griffin has been very good for us and we’ve also had a look at Sean Darcy and Griffin Logue. I think Griffin Logue had a good taste of the intensity and the pressure, the step-up from WAFL-level really.

Given how long McCarthy’s been out of the game for, how exciting was it to see him back on the field?
I’m really pleased to see that he got on the end of a few. League football is about hard work and he hasn’t missed a session during pre-season in terms of training consistently. I think he had a virus one week but he still trained. He’s a tough kid who trains and works and is earning respect the right way. He isn’t worried about outside perceptions.

There must have been a lot of fans that were excited after seeing his performance tonight. What would you send as a message to them?
The message is that he’s a hard worker, he’s a local boy, he’s settled at home with his parents and he’s earning respect the right way. He won’t always play like that but we know he will give great effort.

The turf didn’t look very good. Do you believe it was safe enough to play on?
People signed off on the ground. The assumption I make when I sit in the box it that it’s safe. It’s a non-issue, we just do as they say.

McCarthy got on the end of a few tonight – how have you seen the forward line chemistry over the pre-season?
It’s improving. I thought there was some exciting ball use from us tonight. I thought we worked hard. There was a lot of work put into it last year, we learned some lessons – what worked and what didn’t. When we were in some dominant positions we made some errors. They were good, they never gave up. We always felt we were in control, there was a six-minute period here and there – but they’ve got a lot of talent Carlton.

Were you pleased with your primary midfielders being able to get through the pre-season?
Certainly you want to get to round one with plenty of AFL minutes in you. It’s really difficult to prioritise but we gave some of our kids a taste of it, so they are in reasonable knick. It’s a challenge. The extreme heat conditions cut both of our games short by 30 minutes so it’s a bit shorter than we’d like. But I think it balances out, the adverse conditions and the minutes. You have six months to prepare and most of the time you get it right, and when you get it wrong you find out pretty quickly. We feel we’ve got a strong handle on the amount of work we’ve done.

How do you go about replacing Ballantyne for the early rounds?
I don’t think you can replace Hayden. We will go away and think about it. I’m just enjoying post game at the minute and I will turn my attention. Peel play tomorrow and we’ve got some really good Fremantle players playing for Peel. They are well coached by Cam Shepherd and they will see that opportunity. You’ve got people like Crozier and Sheridan and Suban, we’ve got some really good players down there. Brady Grey – those sort of people could put their hand up for that role.

Do you view Griffin Logue and Sean Darcy as contenders for round one?
Yes, they are contenders.