NAB Cup Rd 3: Click here to view the Photo Gallery


CARLTON coach Brett Ratten has praised the efforts of his under-strength side after it challenged Geelong for most of Saturday night's NAB Cup semi-final.

A youthful Blues outfit eventually lost by 17 points but not before impressing the coach with its enthusiasm, tenacity and work rate.

"I think a lot of our young men got some real confidence and real belief in their own ability [out of that]," Ratten said.

"I think you could say the same thing about the coaches. We watched some of our young men take some really big strides in their careers and I thought they adhered to the instructions perfectly.

"They played really well and it's a shame that we missed some goals toward the end. That really hurts your chances of winning and I think we did that toward the end when we had a window of opportunity to hit the scoreboard.

"In [the past] two weeks we've played the two grand finalists so we've had a pretty good introduction to the start of the year."

Ratten drew criticism for resting Chris Judd, Marc Murphy, Brendan Fevola and Kade Simpson among others, but he defended the move.

"We had this planned pretty much in December-January. We sort of finalised where we were heading and who would be available," he said.

"The management of the players and their fatigue levels is very important. I was rapt to go and watch Shaun Grigg play on the ball, Matthew Kreuzer return with a lot of bounce, Jordan Russell play more on the ball and just watch our backs work together. I was really pleased with the effort."

Ratten revealed that two rookie-listed players are likely to be 'nominated' for senior selection before the start of the home and away season.

Jeff Garlett, Greg Bentley, Aaron Joseph and Sam Jacobs are the front-runners given the amount of action they have seen in the pre-season competition.

"It's a good competition to test the waters for some of those players because during the season you don't get that opportunity," he said.

"As it's structured in the VFL, players might have to go back to the Bullants twos [some weeks] so how do you get a look at them?

"Maybe it might be a rule that the AFL bring in that rookies can play two games in a season without dropping anyone off so we can have a look at them.

"I think they showed us that they can play at this level and I think the match committee has got a pretty hard choice to decide which two get the nod."

The Blues reported no injuries after the match.