The sky's not falling: Judd
Chris Judd says the Blues welcome external pressure but calls for calm after successive losses
CARLTON skipper Chris Judd has called for calm following the Blues' successive losses to St Kilda and Adelaide.
After Sunday's 69-point loss to the Crows, The Blues are seventh on the ladder with a 5-3 record, a stark drop since sitting second after round six.
"Generally people's memory in the AFL is about two weeks. We don't need to get sucked in to thinking the world is falling apart," Judd said on Monday morning.
"We've got some things we need to work on and fix and we'll do that this week."
As recently as last week Carlton carried the tag of premiership favourites, but Judd said the weight of expectation had not overwhelmed the club's inner sanctum.
"It hasn't affected me and it shouldn't affect the playing group because expectation comes with being a good football side," he said.
"If you don't want the expectation then the answer is simple, don't win any games and there will be no expectation."
Judd said the standards the Blues set for themselves were as high, if not higher than external factors and they relished the spotlight.
"We don't want to run away from that, if anything we want to embrace it and hope there is expectation. We really have high expectations of one another and of the footy club internally as well so I don't think that is a factor," he said.
A shoulder injury to midfielder Marc Murphy has added to the Blues' troubles, with coach Brett Ratten saying he would miss "some footy", but Judd said Murphy's absence created opportunities for those on the periphery of Carlton's senior team.
"What you see at other sides and what you see every year when really important players go down is it does open the door for other players to stand up," he said.
"If you look at what has happened at Collingwood with Beams and Sidebottom since 'Bally' (Luke Ball) went down, that has been really important for their group. It gives the opportunity to someone else to stand up and hopefully we've got a player that takes that with both hands."
Luke Holmesby is a reporter for AFL.com.au. Follow him on Twitter - @AFL_Luke
