Mick Malthouse says some of his players panicked during their loss to Richmond but declared there would be no witch-hunt at Carlton.

After his first game as Blues coach, Malthouse was also adamant his charges wouldn’t need to be "babied" to lift their spirits, despite dropping a game they could so easily have snatched.

"There was a little bit of unusual panic by a couple of players who are better than that, that probably had a bit more time to steady with their kicks, either for scoring or perhaps for setting someone else up," he said post-match.

"As I said to the player group, there's no witch-hunt in the rooms tonight. It's just simply we needed to look at why our planning didn’t work and why we were able to get back in the game."

Malthouse said he didn’t even see Chris Yarran's two crucial late misses at goal, as he was focused on watching the next play instead. He refused to be critical of Yarran.

"There's 30-odd points scored. I'm not going to pick one point out of it," he said.

Malthouse railed against the suggestion he might need to "pick up" players like Yarran.

"I don’t need to pick players up. What, do you think they walk around with their head down? They've come back and had a crack. It's round one of a 22-week season.

"They’re not babies. They don’t need to be cuddled and caressed and told how unlucky they are. They got beaten by a better side … this is not a kindergarten. These are grown men."

Malthouse said some Blues had been "very ordinary" in the first half but had shown great character to fight back and contribute. However, he said it was clear his key forwards didn’t kick enough goals.

A pioneer of rapid rotations with Collingwood in 2007, Malthouse also wasn't happy with the operation of the Blues' interchange bench. The Blues made just 106 rotations to Richmond's 133.

"I don’t think we used the interchange anywhere near to the capacity, or the way I wanted to," he said.

"That's a lesson for runners and players to make sure that we get that right to keep the pressure back on sides … the players were lazy."

Malthouse also said he was unsure about the ultra-offensive approach his team had to employ to get back into the game in the second half.

"By working one way, you do rob yourself of some defensive play, and we took that gamble," he said.

"I'm not too sure I really want to sit with that, so we'll have to work on that. It got us back in the game but I'm not 100 per cent sure you can keep having shootouts with sides, particularly like the third quarter.

"But nonetheless it was enough to spook Richmond a bit and we were able to pinch a couple of goals and make it interesting."