Carlton coach David Teague has admitted he bungled a press conference in trying to explain the injury intrigue around star midfielder Patrick Cripps.
A report surfaced last Thursday revealing Cripps had suffered a fractured back early this season and had been receiving pain-killing injections to play.
When Teague fronted his pre-game media conference only hours after the story dropped, he attempted to downplay Cripps' fitness, saying he was unsure what the findings were of the club co-captain's scans.
After the Blues' 26-point defeat to Melbourne at the MCG on Sunday, Teague conceded he handled questioning around Cripps poorly.
"I assessed his game better than the way I handled the media conference the other day. That was pretty average by me," Teague said.
"I thought the injury was in the past, it hampered him in rounds two and three so when it got brought up I was probably a bit frustrated and I probably wasn't as honest and direct as I could have been.
"The message I wanted to get across is he's fine now and I probably could have been clearer with the messaging around that, but the fans need to know that he's right.
'Last week he just didn't have a great game. I probably thought it was one of my worst press conferences.
"I knew the full extent, I just thought it was in the past. At the start of the year, I probably didn't share it all. There are times you just want to protect your player."
Cripps was one of Carlton's better players in their sixth defeat of the season, which was made worse by a suspected season-ending knee injury to midfielder David Cunningham.
The 24-year-old will have scans on Monday, but the Blues fear he has ruptured his anterior cruciate ligament.
Star forward Harry McKay also had pain in his right shoulder, heading down to the rooms in the first quarter, but played out the game to finish with three goals.
"He's had that for a couple of weeks so hopefully he'll continue to get better. He said it felt better going into this game than it did last week so hopefully that will just get better again," Teague said.
