CARLTON midfielder Heath Scotland has denied his team went into Sunday's clash with Hawthorn with an eye on the AFL ladder.

The Blues were flying after recent wins over Geelong, St Kilda and Port Adelaide, while Hawthorn was contemplating a season of waste, sitting in 13th position prior to the clash having won just two games.  

But Scotland said complacency wasn't an excuse when dissecting the Blues' 50-point loss, and instead pointed to critical errors.

"We knew they were coming to play today. Even though it's early in the season, it was their last chance; if they dropped today, they'd fall a fair bit behind," he said.

"They were going to come out to play and we were expecting that. We knew it was going to be a hard, physical contest and we thought we prepared well and were ready for it," said the experienced midfielder. "We just weren't."

Scotland agreed the loss to the Hawks was a reminder of how prepared they must be each week regardless of their opponent.

"The competition is so even," he said.

"We didn't bring that 100 per cent approach today. We might have been at 95 per cent and we paid the price.

"It just shows you've got to be on your game from the start and we weren't."

The 29-year-old also said the Blues' heavy favouritism to topple Hawthorn after securing four wins from their past five starts had not been a factor in the result.

"We don't take much notice of the outside perception," he said.

"It's all indoors. We try to remain focused. We knew we'd played some good games against some quality sides.

"We did have a good month and whether that month has taken a bit of a toll, I'm not sure.

"It may be a possibility but I think we're pretty much a grounded group and we don't listen to the hype.

"We're not getting ahead of ourselves. We know we've got a lot of football to go and we haven't done anything in the last 10, 15 years.

Scotland said injuries to Simon White and Chris Johnson in the second quarter, and Chris Yarran's persistent quad cramp, did affect the Blues' rotations and midfield potency.

He also said the loss of Ryan Houlihan before the game, Jarrad Waite and Kane Lucas last week and the absence of a few other senior players was taking its toll.

"We've got Paul Bower and Andrew Walker to come back in as well so we've got some key personnel that weren't out there", he said.

"But that's taking nothing away from Hawthorn. They played fantastic and we didn't."

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