SENIOR coach Brendon Bolton said it was a case of his Carlton side “hurting ourselves” in the 41-point loss to Essendon.

In a scrappy affair, the Blues trailed the Bombers by 21 points at three quarter time, before the hosts kicked away in the final quarter.

With four goals to show from 50 forward entries, Bolton said the Blues were left to lament a wastefulness going forward.

“I thought we really hurt ourselves in many ways,” Bolton said.

“We didn’t capitalise on our entries… we didn’t capitalise on the scoreboard, we didn’t kick to our advantage enough.”

Despite trailing in clearances, the main headache for the Blues came in the form of Michael Hurley and Cale Hooker, who combined for 27 intercept possessions between them.

Given the wet conditions which hit the MCG, the inability to make the most of their forward thrusts ultimately came back to haunt the Blues, as their traditional rivals ran away with the contest.

“Today wasn’t a day about ball use: it was about making sure you owned the territory, particularly once it started raining,” he said.

“On the long ball, we didn’t kick it to the advantage of our talls well enough and Hurley and Hooker intercepted.

“ We were disengaged forward of the ball too much, hence they outnumbered and intercepted.”

Despite David Cuningham, Paddy Dow and Sam Walsh providing some spark around stoppages (21 disposals each), Patrick Cripps was contained by Dylan Clarke.

Bolton said the Blues would continue to add strength of numbers in its midfield to support the captain.

“You count the numbers going through the midfield today for us,” he said.

“That signals the intent to build a young midfield to help Cripps — that’s a deliberate strategy.

“Lang went through there, Kennedy, Cripps, Jack Silvagni, Fisher, Gibbons, Setterfield, Dow, Walsh. There’s a lot going in there to try and help.”

Carlton returns to Marvel Stadium to take on Brisbane from 1:45pm on Saturday 8 June.