CARLTON coach Brett Ratten says finals is still the mission but to get caught up in September talk would almost certainly bring his young side undone.

After watching the Blues capitulate to a rampant Collingwood on Friday night, Ratten said the focus had to be solely on next week’s opponent North Melbourne.

“Our ambition as a team has never wavered but we said early in the week, and previous weeks, let’s just concentrate on our opposition week by week,” he said.

“It’s an old footy cliché but for us it’s really important because we’re not looking at finals at all. We’re looking at the Kangaroos next week. That was a poor performance and we need to rebound and we need to do it quickly.

“It’s a big test for any team in this situation when your backs every week against the wall and you’ve got someone coming at you full steam ahead and you need to win.

“Every team is challenged in that aspect of the game and it will be very important for us.”

Ratten was left to lament disposal inefficiency against the Magpies.

The Blues were running at a disastrous 50 per cent in the opening term and struggled to rise above that figure all night.

Top possession winners – Heath Scotland (32), Bryce Gibbs (30) and Marc Murphy (29) – were below 50 per cent combined on the night.

“We had four inside 50 marks and (ball) usage was, regardless of the inside 50s (56), all over the ground was pretty poor tonight,” he said.

Despite the inability to hit targets, and the fact the Magpies kicked five goals to one in the opening term, the Blues clawed to within 18 points at the 20-minute mark of the third term despite having only three goals on the board to that stage.

It was at the point Ratten said his side lost its momentum.

“We had the ball around the 50m arc, maybe just inside, we miss the target –turnover. Then it goes down the other end, (Paul) Medhurst doesn’t miss a target to (Dayne) Beams and it’s another goal,” he said.

“I think we had our opportunities. Did we play well? No, we didn’t play well. We got beaten at stoppages early but we had a little window where we were just grinding away but couldn’t get any reward.

“We lost (Chris) Johnson in the last (quarter and we run out of puff in the end.”

Ratten said skipper Chris Judd was rested in the final term but said he would be right to tackle the Kangaroos next Friday night.