Carlton coach David Teague has conceded he stuffed up his pre-game media conference when he addressed the injury intrigue around co-captain Patrick Cripps.

The Age reported on Thursday morning that Cripps had a fracture in his back — an injury that had required the star midfielder to have weekly injections to help him play — as a result of a knock he suffered during a pre-season game.

Hours after the story was published, Teague strongly refuted suggestions Cripps was dealing with a fractured back. The Blues coach admitted last week Cripps did have a back issue at the start of the season but it had healed, yet he added he was “not sure what the findings were” in relation to how severe the issue was.

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Cripps on Sunday appeared to shrug off any concerns about the seriousness of his back injury, finishing with 27 touches and seven clearances in Carlton’s loss to Melbourne.

Speaking to reporters post-game, Teague said Cripps’ performance against Melbourne was far “better than the way I handled the media conference” four days earlier.

Teague said he “thought it was one of my worst press conferences”.

“That was pretty average by me,” he told reporters.

“I thought the injury was in the past. It hampered him in Rounds 2 and 3, so when it got brought up I was probably a bit frustrated. I probably wasn’t as honest and direct as I probably could’ve been.

“At the end of the day, the message I wanted to get across was he’s fine now. I probably could’ve been clearer with the messaging around that.

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“For me, the fans need to know he’s right, he’s out there. Last week he didn’t have a great game and then today we saw him turn up and compete and play strong and lead from the front.

“I knew the full extent (of the injury), I just thought it was in the past. To be honest, at the start of the year I probably didn’t share it all because there are times when you want to protect your player. This one, the frustration probably came off it was in the past and we were dragging up old news.

“Our medical staff, I have absolute trust in them. I think they do a very good job. But do they feed that information back to me? Absolutely. I‘m clear about what’s going on. I even did anatomy at university, so I’d like to think I know a little bit more than most.

“They do a great job and we‘ll always put the best interests of our players at heart. That’s something that I think this club really prides itself on. You can see that with Charlie Curnow, we’re not going to rush him back.”

Teague was full of praise for Cripps’ output against the Demons.

“I thought his game was good, he had about 10 tackles, tough inside, competed hard.

“He’s been a great player for us for a long time and I thought today he was tough again and put his head over the ball and won it. And when he didn’t, he pressured well.”

Teague also revealed key forward and Coleman Medal leader Harry McKay had been playing through a shoulder injury for at least the past fortnight.

McKay came from the ground early in the first quarter after suffering a knock to his right shoulder against the Demons before coming back onto the ground and playing out the game.

McKay looked ginger and struggled to compete one-on-one against Steven May but came to life in the third quarter with two of his three goals.

He’s had that for a couple of weeks so hopefully it will continue to get better,” Teague said after the game.

“He said he felt better going into this game than last week so hopefully it will get better again.”

In a double blow for the Blues, David Cuningham looks set for an extended stint on the sidelines after going down in the opening minutes with a suspected ACL injury.

Both Cripps and McKay are attracting ample media attention for different reasons as they’re both out of contract at season’s end.

But Teague denied the speculation on the duo’s futures was hindering the team’s on-field performance.

“What’s impacting our group is we’re probably not living up to our own expectations and the pressure we’re putting on ourselves,” he said.

“We all want to get there as quickly as possible. The year before last year, we probably thought we would hopefully get there and be in every game. This year, again, we‘ve been in most games.

“But we‘ve got to start turning those into wins. That comes from doing the basics for 120 minutes and being really tough for 120 minutes and working hard for 120 minutes.”

— with Jack Paynter, NCA Newswire