AS RECENTLY as last month, Cooper Lord was playing for Carlton's VFL side.

He had been dropped from the seniors in April following a narrow loss Fremantle and left to develop his craft as a midfielder at the lower level. And in his time racking up the touches through the VFL, a lot was going on at Carlton.

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When head coach Michael Voss stepped away and interim Josh Fraser was appointed, Lord's VFL teammates were given more opportunity week after week. Billy Wilson established himself as a distributor out of defence, Talor Byrne won fans as a dangerous small forward and even veterans like George Hewett and Blake Acres returned to the top level.

But still, Lord was fighting to be picked.

So when his time finally came in round 19 against Collingwood, almost three months after he had been dropped, he took his chance and has not looked back.

And by the time Carlton had ridden that wave of momentum all the way to a wildcard final, he was trusted with one of the toughest tasks in AFL: minimise the impact of All Australian Demon Kysaiah Pickett.

"It was tossed up pretty early in the week and we prepared pretty well for it. Obviously 'Kozzy' is a great player, and it's great to be able to play on those types. I love the mental battle of it," Lord told AFL.com.au following his superb shutdown job on the Demons star in the Blues' wildcard win at the MCG.

Pickett was held to just three behinds on Saturday night and an overall disposal efficiency of just 31.6 per cent from his 19 touches, which went a long way toward Carlton's stirring win.

"Obviously Kozzy's a pretty special player, and his footwork and agility is something that sets him apart. So I watched a bit of his vision, but also it was a team effort. The boys helped me out today, and I just tried to go head-to-head with him and back myself in," Lord said.

Lord credits midfield coach Leigh Adams, Fraser and VFL head coach Damian Truslove with instilling the confidence in him to take on such important roles, and trust in his ability to execute.

"I think 'Frase' just gives us full confidence to go out there and play our way, and I think that's what we're doing. Credit to the coaching team, but the boys' ability to just trust ourselves and keep taking the game on has been awesome," Lord said.

For the coaching staff, Lord was the obvious choice when choosing someone to minimise the impact of a star like Pickett.

"I thought Coop did a great job, well supported by guys around him, but stuck to his task," Fraser said.

"Very team-oriented guy, thought he was able to - over the course of the four quarters - nullify Kozzy as much as he could. It's hard to stop a great player like that all the time, but I thought Coop did a great job."

Truslove, who nursed Lord through a lean middle patch of the year, said the 21-year-old is the ultimate professional.

"He prepares himself so well, he's a professional with the way he gets his body prepared, he's hard and tough, and we were all confident he'd get the job done," Truslove said.

"He's just very determined, he works hard, he does his work, he puts his hours in during the week watching vision. He does his craft, he's very composed about everything he does, and he's always looking to get better."

And Lord is just one of the weapons Carlton will confidently carry into next week's elimination final with perennial contender Geelong.

"We have confidence that when we play our best, we can beat anyone. So we've got to keep believing that," Lord said.