‘Worse than they appear’: Blues coach defends injured star after bizarre friendly fire incident

Josh Fraser defended star forward Harry McKay after a knee knock sidelined him early in Carlton’s 21-point loss to Collingwood.

“He couldn’t come back onto the field,” said Fraser.

“The information we got, he wasn’t okay to continue, so we’ll get a scan on him and assess him early in the week.

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“ Those ones can sometimes look worse than what they appear.

“ I can’t right now shed any more light on Harry’s situation other than he couldn’t come back onto the field.”

McKay was sorely missed not only forward of the ball, but also in the ruck, and his absence put further pressure on the struggling Brodie Kemp.

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Kemp’s woes from recent weeks compounded, as he contributed just one goal.

“He’s working hard on it,” said Fraser of Kemp’s goal kicking.

“Sometimes with goal kicking you can maybe work too hard.

“ We’ll have a considered approach of what he’s doing and what his method looks like, and we’ll keep giving him some positive reinforcement around that.

“ That’s something we need to take a look at and support him with.”

While the loss of McKay proved to be game-shaping - and even season-defining in many ways - Carlton’s inefficiency inside 50 is not an issue that is either new or simple.

“Our method looked poor I thought,” said Fraser.

“I didn’t think we won enough contests in front of the ball.

“ We are not scoring or capitalising on that [strong] transition anywhere near efficiently enough.

“It’s personnel, it’s structure, it’s patterning, it’s decision with the ball and then when you don’t connect.

“This is not a quick fix.

“ You get some results and you think you’re fixed - we never thought that.

“We were looking at our game, we were committed to exposing different players to the system.

“We’re committed to playing a certain way, and we’re not quite there.

“That’s our reality.

“Clearly we’ve got work to do, and part of that will be exposing players to AFL football and finding out who can help this football club move forward and play a game style that we believe in time will stand up.”

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