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GEELONG played some of the best football of its season against Carlton on Saturday night, but coach Brett Ratten was disappointed by the sluggish performance put in by his side in response.

The Blues had plotted all week to try and expose the Cats in much the same way that the hard-tackling Magpies did in round nine, but instead found themselves exposed after half time.

“The way they reacted in most things was a lot quicker than us with the ball or without the ball,” Ratten said after the inaccurate reigning premiers defeated his team by 56 points.

“They were off the mark quicker, they handballed quicker, they chased us down, they hunted us up, so from all aspects, [in terms of] quickness as a whole I thought they just did it so much better than us.

“It was disappointing. We’ve spoken about what we needed to learn from the game individually and collectively. They had around 80 tackles to our 46 so what Collingwood did to them last week, they just did the flip side to us and they smashed us.

“We over-possessed the ball at times, but they hunted us up and that’s why they’re a good team.”

Ratten’s night was further soured when defender Paul Bower left the ground after falling heavily on his left shoulder. The coach confirmed he had injured his AC joint and had been sent to hospital to determine the injury’s severity.

“We’ll have to try and find another backman,” Ratten said, adding that first-choice full-back Michael Jamison still won’t be fit to resume from injury when the side travels to Adelaide next week to take on Port Adelaide.

“It was highlighted [pre-season] that we need to strengthen our back half, and we’ve had a bit of a spasmodic time of it with injuries and suspension as well.”

Inexperienced ruck duo Matthew Kreuzer and Shaun Hampson struggled to compete against Brad Ottens, who had 23 hit-outs in his first game of the season, and Mark Blake, and Ratten admitted No.1 draft pick Kreuzer was starting to show signs of wear.

“It might be time to give him a rest,” he said.

“He’s done a lot of work for us in his first year as a kid coming in and has to take the burden of that ruck role. I think he’s done some outstanding efforts, but AFL’s a pretty uncompromising business.”

Ratten promised a lengthy video review of the match, with the polished Cats offering plenty for his players to learn from.

“You can’t hide from that,” he said.

“We do it on a Tuesday and we'll go a bit longer and we’ll sit down with our group and go through all aspects and how [the Cats] did what was done to them the week before.”

Youngsters Dennis Armfield and Steven Browne were both solid in defence for the Blues and earned praise from their coach for their poise under siege.

“They’re two young kids and they didn’t look out of place and we’ll sort of be going with those types to play through that area and in the midfield as well. That was a real plus for us.

“[Armfield’s] a little bit like Shaun Hampson – they didn’t play a lot of Australian Rules footy by the time they came to us. His genuine pace and the speed that he runs at is at AFL tempo, so [it is a positive] when you put the two young kids in playing fairly well.”