"He's passionate about his people and there's nothing wrong with that," said Barker, who had plenty on his plate on Friday night after taking over from Mick Malthouse after his tense exit.

Longmire, too, said he was more concerned about the football side of things than how players celebrate. When asked about the booing controversy around the star player, he said: "I've heard different angles on it. I'm not sure everyone's completely sure what it's for. The only thing I would say is, if there was anything at all regarding racial connotations to it, that would be really disappointing. But I don't know. I certainly hope not."

Longmire had been asked about the startling celebration, but answered with: "To be honest, as a coach you don't sit there and look at players after goals. You're moving on to the next thing. I caught the very end of it at one of the replays. I didn't see it live, I saw a tiny bit of it at the end. I was a bit unaware during the course of the game about the interest in it. I was more concerned about beating Carlton.

"You do focus on the football in the coach's box during a game. The thing I did notice was he played a pretty good game."

Another player who had a good game was Lance Franklin, who kicked seven goals.

"He had the kicking boots on," Longmire said.

"He was good, particularly early, to be able to kick three in the first quarter. He certainly played well.

"He's always been good both sides of the ball, putting pressure on. Tonight, to be able to finish off his work and get seven goals, to kick so accurately, was really impressive. He was obviously a critical player for us."

Longmire also praised Dan Robinson, the debutant who was supposed to start in the substitute's vest but came into the 21 after defender Heath Grundy strained a quad muscle in the warm up and was ruled out.

"He was going to be sub originally and he was trying to hide his absolute glee about coming into the 21 but he didn't do a very good job of it. It's one of the great jobs in footy is to see a kid play his first game. To do so well, it's really exciting.

"He had 15 possessions and a goal. He was clean early and that's not easy to do when you're used to playing at a lower level and coming into the senior company."

The Blues lost by plenty but could walk away with some satisfaction, Barker indicated. The coach said the scoreboard was not the major concern for the side as they sought to begin healing their wounds.

"Tonight was never going to be about talent, it was going to about our effort. We thought we got a response there," Barker said.

"There was more commitment and intensity. They just talked about the fact that there is a standard of effort. It's the end of a fairly emotional week. We're disappointed with the result but there's a level of effort that we're getting to."

Barker looked exhausted after the game. He described the week as a "a bit of a whirlwind".

"It's been a bit of a tough week obviously. I'm looking forward to having a good sleep tonight," he said.