Michael Voss much prefers having Carlton's problem to Essendon's.

Once again, the Blues faded in the second half on Saturday night at the MCG, holding on this time to beat the Bombers 11.12 (78) to 11.4 (70) in a pulsating AFL clash.

Voss was furious at three-quarter time after they squandered a 38-point lead early in the second term.

Conversely, for the second week in a row, Essendon had to fight their way back into the match after a poor first quarter, on the way to a narrow loss.

"It's a good problem to have if you're in front by that much and you're getting that many opportunities - it's a good problem to try and solve," Voss said

"The harder one to solve is you're behind all the time, you get no opportunities and you're trying to win the game from a completely negative base.

"So it just depends on how you look at it."

Voss also said Carlton had worked hard on the problem in their mid-season bye, but it would not be fixed immediately.

"It's a step at a time. We're not going to go from zero to 100 in 5.8 seconds here," he said.

"The bye gave us an opportunity to look at all those things and maybe did a bit more into the 'why'.

"Some of that was around our ball movement, some of that was just being to make sure we can execute for longer and continue to persist."

A highlight was the debut of ruck-forward Hudson O'Keeffe, who was a late addition when Harry McKay was forced out with knee soreness.

He took five contested marks in an eye-catching game and Voss revealed post-game that O'Keeffe had made big improvements in the last few weeks.

"Six weeks ago, I didn't think he was AFL-ready," Voss said.

There were also positives for Essendon, with Darcy Parish making a strong return from injury and their undermanned defence against bearing up well after being under siege in the first quarter.

"We're certainly optimistic about what we're building, but I said to the players, we're all competitive people and we should never be satisfied coming away and not getting what we're after," said Bombers coach Brad Scott.