The Blues suffered their fifth defeat of the season despite launching a stirring second-half fight back, going down by 44 points.
Ratten felt his team’s willingness to get first use of the footy and poor efficiency in going forward were costly against a Crows side that dominated the opening half.
“Structurally we got hurt a little bit by trying to put some pressure and some numbers around the ball, but we did it far too much,” he said after the game.
“They got their hands on the footy very early and were very sharp compared to us and we were really reactive as a group to win back the footy.
“Going forward we were very slow and reluctant to release the ball to a contest.”
Ratten felt his side were in with a chance during the second half when the Blues kicked five unanswered goals to reduce the gap to 26 points at one stage.
However, the Crows were able to regroup and Ratten always felt his side were behind the eight ball thereafter.
“We thought we could [get back into the game]. It’s a pretty big ask to go eight goals down and turn it around.
“There was a patch there where we thought ‘here we go, here we come’. If we could get down to around 20 points we could recharge the batteries and go into the last quarter.
“We never got into that scenario and that’s all hypothetical and we were beaten on the day by a team that was really hungry for the ball and probably won more one on one contests.”
Ratten was more upbeat about the promising youngsters on their way up through the Carlton ranks, despite the lack of consistency on field.
“It’s an interesting one I suppose and there is some hype, which we’ve also generated ourselves.
“We’re the youngest team in the AFL by experience on our list ... I think we’re averaging about 61 games per player.
“We’ve played seven kids under 15 or less games and we’ve had five kids that have debuted this year. We can grow as a group and move up the ladder, but we’re mindful that we need to develop our stocks from underneath.”
