IN THE aftermath of Carlton’s win against Geelong, Senior Coach David Teague spoke about the need for belief.

A Carlton team which had struggled to record wins needed to believe they were good enough, that their best football can mix it with the best.

Co-captain Sam Docherty agrees.

Speaking to RSN’s Inner Sanctum, Docherty - who was one of Carlton’s best last weekend - said a rise in confidence would work wonders for the playing group.

“We haven’t won a lot of games in the last three, four or five years,” Docherty said.

“There’s this underlying thing that we’ve drafted kids — they’re not kids anymore, but we did draft kids to the football club that have been brought through this period of low winning games.

“The confidence of the group and the confidence to get the job done on game day probably hasn’t been as high as it should be on game day if you walk into a winning footy club.

“We’re trying to change that culture and part of that is believing in the group we’ve got and believing that we’re ready to start to perform.”

It’s a catch 22 for the Blues, with Docherty saying that the confidence to win games of football comes about from doing just that: winning games of football.

Carlton achieved what 90 of the last 100 teams to head down to Kardinia Park couldn’t on the weekend: beat Geelong in its own backyard.

He said the performances of the likes of Michael Gibbons and Marc Pittonet were examples of teammates believing of their capabilities at the elite level.

“If you speak to a lot of AFL players, a lot of them would say there’s a game early in their career where they realise ‘Jeez, I’m actually really good at footy and at AFL level,” he said.

“There’s a difference between being drafted and competing and doing it at AFL level. A lot of guys are going through those games where they’re starting to see that their ability stacks up at a high level.

“If we start to get that on a regular basis, we’ll turn into a very good footy side.”