CARLTON'S VFL affiliate the Northern Bullants were defeated by 13th-placed Box Hill Hawks on Saturday at NAB Oval. It was their second loss in a row, and leaves them eighth on the ladder with seven wins, eight losses.

Coach David Teague shares his thoughts on the match and how some of the Carlton-listed players performed.

We had a disappointing result on the weekend. We had a reasonable team out there, but Box Hill played with a bit more spirit and passion than we did on what was a very windy day.

When it gets windy, it's more of a desperation sort of game, and they played the windy conditions better than we did. We allowed them score some late goals in the first quarter, which gave them a good lead.

Box Kill kicked pretty straight in the first and we ended up kicking 5.10 in the first half, so we had a few missed opportunities we really should have taken advantage of given we played the second quarter with the breeze.

A couple of those weren't real hard shots, so that was probably where we let ourselves down.

We've had a few losses in a row now and I don't think it's a personnel thing because we've still had some good players out there. There have been a few changes but I think the main problem is that we've stopped believing.

I know it's a bit of a throw-away line but we're not playing with any confidence at the moment. We play our best footy when we take the game on and we back ourselves, and we haven't done that in the last couple of weeks.

The conditions haven't really suited free-flowing football, but we haven't been able to adapt and use our style with the conditions we've faced.

Having said that, Luke Blackwell played really well on the weekend as an on-ball rover, Steven Browne came down from Carlton and fitted straight back in, which was a real credit to him. He could have been disappointed with coming down but he just went and played really well.

One of our other better players was Sam Jacobs in the ruck, who really played the conditions well and was very smart, and Darren Pfeiffer in the second half when he moved on ball was pretty handy.

I played my first game in a while and got through it. It was good to be back. I love playing and being out there. It would have been nice to have a win and enjoy it a bit more, but it was good to be amongst it.

We've got a bye this week and the weekend off to start training hard again and get ourselves ready for our last five games. We're sitting eighth so we're still a chance to make the finals, but the last couple of weeks have made it a bit harder for us.

We need to get back that belief in ourselves. We'll get quite a few players back in our next game with Ryan Houlihan, Richard Hadley, Dennis Armfield and Clint Benjamin coming back from injury, so we'll have a few more to choose from.

There will be tough decisions made but it's always really good when you've got competition for positions.

We've got a pretty tough run to the finals. In our last five games, we play four sides that are above us, so it's going to be really hard. But if we can keep getting players like Blackwell in and winning the ball, we're going to be a chance.

We've had a few injuries lately with Setanta O'hAilpin out on the weekend. He's had an ongoing sore calf that is to do with the nervous system in his lower leg. We're not sure when he'll be back.

That's disappointing, and at the moment he's seeing some specialists about it because it's a bit of a different injury, but hopefully he'll be back soon and playing well.

NORTHERN BULLANTS                1.1 5.10 6.10 7.14 (56)

BOX HILL HAWKS             6.4 7.6 10.12 13.14 (92)

Northern Bullants: M. Lappin 2, J. Bannister 2, D. Teague, A. Gianfagna, D. Ellard

Box Hill Hawks: B. Dowler 3, B. Neil 2, T. Clarke, A. Neville, C. Hunter, Z. Dawson, D. Marcius, C. Pedersen, A. Grima, B. Smithwick

Northern Bullants: S. Browne, L. Blackwell, S. Jacobs, J. Vansittart, A. Gianfagna, D. Pfeiffer

Box Hill Hawks: L. Markovic, B. Dowler, Z. Dawson, C. Stokes, T. Clarke, L. McQueen-Miscamble