CARLTON’S rise into the top half of the ladder has presented coach Brett Ratten with an interesting conundrum; does he try to maintain a settled and winning side or does he continue to push up the kids?

Ratten pinpointed having a reasonably settled 22 as one of the key reasons for good wins over Port Adelaide and Collingwood in the past fortnight, but he must balance that with the long-term future which demands his young players see senior action.

“It’s a tough one; we need to get games into our younger-type players to give them experience,” Ratten said.

“We’ve got Mark Austin who’s probably had four or five good weeks at reserves level and still might miss out this week. We’ve got match committee after training today, but he might miss out again.

“He got best on ground again [last week], but it’s hard if you’ve got players who are playing well in certain positions; it makes it even tougher.”

Austin is just one of a raft of young players, including Joey Anderson, Steven Browne and Luke Blackwell, who pushed their names up for senior selection in the Northern Bullants’ 75-point win over Collingwood at the weekend.

That sort of selection pressure hasn’t been evident for some time at the club and while Ratten empathised with those currently outside the senior side, he said it was a good sign for the team.

“That’s been the pleasing aspect as we go along, maybe earlier in the year we might have given some free games away to players to get that experience, but now you’ve really got to earn your stripes to get into this team,” he said.

“That’s what we need, that’s what successful teams have had, the teams that have been in the finals year in, year out. That’s our challenge; to make sure that the players underneath are ready just to jump in and contribute at senior level.”

Carlton has debuted six players so far this season and Ratten pledged to continue giving his young players exposure to the elite level where possible despite breaking into the top eight.