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CARLTON coach Brett Ratten whisked his players away behind closed doors after Saturday night's upset loss to Essendon and delivered a stern address after what he agreed had been a harsh reality check for his group.

The club has enjoyed a good run in press after two wins to start the season and while he admitted it may have been a factor, Ratten said his players must learn to cope with the weight of expectation and the attention that comes with it.

"I think it's a reminder to us and the competition about how even it is," Ratten said after the four-point defeat.

"We've had some real positive press at our club which is great, people enjoy that side of things to get a pat on the back, but it is an even competition and if you put one foot wrong you get brought back down to earth.

"I think it was a good lesson for our group. Not just the players, but the coaching group as well, to make sure that we get everything right. It doesn't matter where you are in the competition … they were very hungry and I think they made us pay in the second quarter with how hard they worked for the footy.

"You are going to get good press and bad press, but you've got to front up, the siren goes, it's 22 versus 22 and you've got to give all you've got."

Ratten lamented his side's failure to translate its early dominance onto the scoreboard.

"I thought maybe if we'd kicked straighter earlier we might have put the game really in our favour. We didn't and we paid the ultimate price," he said.

"When you have that many shots at goal, we had a chance to put a fair gap in the game, and like most games, if you don't make the opposition pay you get burnt the other way and we did – there's no doubt."

The coach refused to lay the blame at the feet of full-forward Brendan Fevola who had a wasteful night kicking 4.7 with another shot out on the full. The star forward has struggled with a persistent heel injury through the start of the season was on crutches after the game, but Ratten said that was only precautionary.

The Blues clearly won the battle of the stoppages with 33 clearances to 19, but could not put consistent pressure on the opposition when the ball went to ground inside forward 50.

"It's been a big plus for us, the forward 50 pressure, but tonight I think we only had five inside 50 tackles, so that's where we got let down," he said.

"[We didn't] retain the footy inside our forward 50 to stop that flow and momentum.

"To dominate clearances like we did and then pretty much all their score launches came from our forward 50. We'd kick it in and they'd score."

Ratten refused to be drawn on the incident late in the third quarter that saw Matthew Lloyd and Alwyn Davey goal from successive free kicks.