CARLTON coach Michael Voss says he will "not pass the blame onto anyone" following his side's 50-point thrashing to Port Adelaide on Thursday night.

It's the second disappointing loss for the Blues in less than a week, having fallen to 16th-placed North Melbourne just five days earlier.

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The defeat means Carlton will almost certainly miss finals, which will no doubt add to the already rising pressure on Voss, his players and the club.

Though Voss was disappointed with the performance of his team, he was firm in his belief that the club would come together rather than lay blame on any specific members.

"We're disappointed. We're absolutely disappointed," he said after the match.

"We're not where we want to be. But it's time to come together, not isolate. 

"If there's one thing I know about working through really tough times, it's how we connect. And what we won't do, you will not see us do, is pass blame on anyone.

"So what we'll 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."

Voss rued his team's slow start, an area where Carlton has excelled this season, where the Blues conceded eight goals before kicking their first less than two minutes before half-time.

"We've been good at that for pretty much the whole year, getting our starts right," said Voss.

"But no, we got that wrong. Just didn't come with an appetite to the contest. They were able to 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, you know, being untidy with the ball out of the back half, gave even more opportunities back to them.

"But, you know, bad kicking's bad footy. We certainly had opportunities in front of goal. Sometimes we hit the scoreboard. Sometimes we kicked it out on the full … We should have been better than that."

Key forward Charlie Curnow had another frustrating game, finishing the night goalless, but Voss backed his two-time Coleman medallist.

"I thought he competed really hard today. He has had some form struggles, and I understand that he's probably copped some attention because of it, but I tell you what, that bloke absolutely tried his backside off today," Voss said.

"I don't think we gave him too many favours, but at the same time, that comes back to the collective stuff. But, no, I'm not walking away from that game and saying that Charlie didn't compete. He competed as hard as he possibly could."

The Blues now have an eight-day break before facing ladder leader Collingwood on Friday night at the MCG.

And Voss said the club wouldn't change the way it handles things when it next meets at Ikon Park.

"We have that weekly review. That won't change. That consistency, the way we want to be able to play and how we review the game and what happened, that won't change," he said.

"You've got to walk into our environment. You've got to be able to see the same behaviours every single week. So whether you win, whether you lose, that's what winning is all about.

"You turn up on Monday, you try and find ways to be able to get better. You look at what worked and didn't work. This one (Thursday's game), we didn't have the effort at the start."

Port coach Ken Hinkley praised the efforts of Miles Bergman, who helped shut down Carlton captain Patrick Cripps.

"I think he's (Bergman) a really high-talent player who can play anywhere. It's such a weapon that you can put, as I said, you could play forward. I think he might have kicked a couple of goals tonight even," he said.

"He can probably play front of centre and hit the scoreboard. Certainly, we know he plays behind the ball really strongly. Now, in the last six or eight weeks, he's demonstrating that midfield is well and truly within his grasp. I think he's a really good player. "

Zak Butters spent the night being closely watched by Carlton tagger Alex Cincotta before finishing with an equal game-high 30 disposals.

"He's a tough bugger and plays really strong footy," Hinkley said of Butters.

"He's clearly important and he's learning to deal with tags. I think that's been another growth of him.

"I think Zak is a top four or five player in the competition. He's now learning to handle the tags in different ways and not just purely aggressively go after it. He's learnt lots again this year and he's only going to get better."

Hinkley confirmed that Jason Horne-Francis was subbed out for precautionary reasons in order to give him extra time to recover from a shoulder problem for next Saturday night's match against Brisbane.

"His shoulder's obviously clearly been a bit sore, so we took the opportunity to take him out of the game," Hinkley said.

"We've got nine, 10 days between now and our next game. He'll be hopefully back to cherry ripe and he will play a bit more midfield from there.

"But the size of the task that's coming is pretty big, against a ferocious midfield and an outstanding footy club, coached really well, reigning premiers, not many bigger challenges probably."