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CARLTON coach Brett Ratten has put any thoughts of a 2008 finals appearance on the backburner after the Blues’ 35-point loss to Essendon.
Carlton blew their chance to keep their spot in the top eight with a 20.16 (136) to 15.11 (101) loss at the MCG, just a week after rushing into contention with a startling win over Collingwood.
“We are never talking finals again,” Ratten said.
“It was great that we got to have a look [at the top eight] but as soon as we got our head above the horizon, it seemed to get kicked off.
“That was the challenge I threw to the group to stay in the eight but now I think it is just about us winning games and the development.
“We have still got a lot of learning to do so to worry about playing finals football… if it came it would be fantastic, but let’s just worry about the Richmond game next week.”
The Blues started woefully and trailed by 39 points at quarter time, then fell away again late in the game after leading midway through the last term.
“We had started fairly well but today, instead of jumping out of the box, we were stuck in the banana lounge you could say,” Ratten said.
“It was terrible, it was the worst start to a game we have had this season.”
And Ratten said things weren’t much better when they let through six goals in the last 17 minutes of the match.
“I think the wheels just fell off at the end,” Ratten said. “They continued to win the ball out of the middle and pump it in.
“They just went ‘whack’.”
He said the Bombers kicking 13 goals from stoppages had really hurt the side.
“I was really disappointed with today, we had a great opportunity to keep rising as a team with that confidence side of things.”
Ratten rated Bombers’ ruckman David Hille as the dominant player on the field and said he set up Essendon’s win.
“[He was] clearly best on ground today, he was the one that really sparked them. His second efforts of just hitting the ball, just follow up work, and he had 22 possessions.”
Ratten said Chris Judd and Andrew Carrazzo had both suffered concussion. Judd, in particular, didn’t look himself after a nasty head clash with Essendon captain Matthew Lloyd in the first term and spent much of the rest of the match in the forward line.
He still looked affected as he left the change rooms an hour after the final siren.
“He was a little bit dazed and we took him off and on to assess him,” Ratten said.
“He seemed to say he was right but the docs are looking at him again.
“You don’t like to put players out there [not] in the right state of mind in assessing the game.
“It is that hard, it is a 360-degree game and to ask players to try and take the game on and do all these things we ask him to do in heavy traffic and his awareness is not spot on, we thought it was in our best interests to look after him.”
