CARLTON spent the long weekend ahead of its Monday night clash with St Kilda watching as some of the favourites took a tumble.

Geelong was smashed by Adelaide, the Sydney Swans the same by Richmond and West Coast upended by Essendon. The Giants enjoyed their first win, while the largely unloved Western Bulldogs took it up to the North Melbourne and spirited away a fine victory.

Thirty hours later, and on the very same patch of turf where the highly-fancied Kangaroos came a cropper, so too did the Blues, losing to St Kilda by 24 points.

Coach Brett Ratten said the Blues went into the game with their eyes wide open - the events of the weekend only serving to reinforce that notion, even before the Blues arrived at the ground.

"We're really aware of the competition and how even it is," Ratten said afterwards.

"You've seen on the weekend some very tight games and whether you're the favourite going in or not, it's a very even competition and we're not getting ahead of ourselves one bit."

Added ruckman Matthew Kreuzer: "Obviously it's a tough competition and you have to turn up each week ready to go and if you're that couple of per cent off its going to show.

"You hate losing so you want to come out next week and get those four points back. We look forward to next week's challenge."

And quite a challenge it will be, with the Blues back at Etihad Stadium against a rampant Adelaide on Sunday. It's a short turnaround for Carlton and Ratten let his side know in a lengthy team meeting late on Monday night that he might be ready to shake the team up just a bit.

The side that looked so impressive over the opening three weeks of the season is laboring a bit, with two wins from their past four outings and a lack of consistent output that is starting to gnaw at the coach.

"We haven't been as sharp as we were those first three weeks. Our intensity and fanaticism was very good, but that has dropped away a little bit," he said.

"Some of the players would have got a wake-up call with respects to their position in the team."

Ratten said the main areas for concern out of Monday night's loss was Carlton's ball use going inside its attacking 50. He said it was average against Greater Western Sydney last week and "terrible" against the Saints.

At the other end, he said the Blues yielded too many scoring shots to the Saints, aided and abetted by skill errors and poor decision making, even when they had extra numbers around the ball.

And he was disappointed that with the Saints missing their No.1 ruckman, Ben McEvoy, his side could not parlay a 60-25 edge in hit-outs to an edge in clearances, which they lost 41-37.

St Kilda's small forwards also got hold of his side, with Stephen Milne, Terry Milera and Ahmed Saad bagging none goals between them, but he defended the choice of Aaron Joseph on Milne, saying that Joseph played so well on Fremantle's Hayden Ballantyne a fortnight ago that Freo coach Ross Lyon awarded Joseph votes in the AFL Coaches Association Award.

Ratten said the Blues would get running defender Chris Yarran back for the clash with the Crows.

You can follow AFL Media senior writer Ashley Browne on Twitter @afl_hashbrowne