CARLTON midfielder Andrew Carrazzo says he was sick in his stomach after the disappointment of Saturday night's three-point semi-final loss to West Coast.

The Blues trailed by 21 points late in the final quarter before kicking three goals, but fell just short in a September nail-biter for the third consecutive year.

Brett Ratten's side also exited the finals in heartbreaking circumstances in 2009, when it lost an elimination final to Brisbane by seven points, and last season, where it fell by five at the same stage to the Sydney Swans.

While Carlton finally broke its finals hoodoo with victory against Essendon last week, Carrazzo said it was devastating to be knocked out in such a close contest yet again.

"Everyone just feels sick in the stomach. Just with the way we played to come so close and fall just short is really disheartening," Carrazzo said.

"It definitely makes it harder to take. We just look back at the game, how it went and how we played and a few little errors we made. It doesn't get any easier, it gets worse.

"The game is a bit of a blur, I think everyone just emptied everything they had. I'm sure the coaches will look over what happened and try to pinpoint how we can get better from it, but now it's just really disappointing.

"'Ratts' spoke in [the team meeting] about how everyone has got to raise the bar. There's improvement in everyone from [Chris] Judd right down to Chris Yarran. If we're going to challenge the top teams and finish top four, we've just got to improve."

The Blues overcame a quieter than usual performance from Judd, who had just 17 disposals and was well held by Scott Selwood, to remain competitive.

Much of that was due to Carlton's strong start, as it kicked the first four goals of the game, while strong individual performances from Marc Murphy (23 disposals and eight tackles) and Mitch Robinson (27 disposals, eight marks and eight tackles) kept it competitive.

But the Eagles dominated the second quarter, kicking eight goals to three to turn a 16-point quarter-time deficit into an 11-point lead at the main break.

Carrazzo said it was especially frustrating West Coast was able to kick five consecutive majors at one point and Carlton was unable to respond.

"[Nic] Naitanui and [Dean] Cox were just able to feed their onballers [in the second quarter] and they could dictate to us," he said.

"We didn't change up quick enough what we were doing. We changed up at half-time, but especially in that period, we weren't able to adjust quick enough unfortunately."

Carrazzo said the playing group had the potential to improve rapidly and was confident they would in 2012.