SIX Carlton players endured the misery of every one of the club's 14 previous consecutive losses. Six more Carlton players, until yesterday, had not had cause to sing the club's song at game's end.

It had been 309 days since Carlton last broke into verse after the match, a sequence that would have become a club record had it not been for defeating the club's most loathed opponent.

"It's huge. Fantastic," said midfielder Heath Scotland.

"To break the sequence … we can't get carried away but, to be honest, I think more of it being the sequence this year — conceding three losses in a row and then going four-zip down would have really put us behind the eight ball — than I do think of it being 14 losses or 15 losses.

"It doesn't matter whichever way you look at it, it is huge for us to get that win." Scotland was one of the few there when Carlton last won, and suffered the regular defeats betwixt.

"It's hard for the young players that have come into a side, a culture, that is always losing. They don't know how to win, so it was good for us today. It's like a big weight off our shoulders we have been busting our bums and nothing has been working for us."

Coach Brett Ratten admitted to additional pressure before the game but instantly felt 80 kilograms lighter at match's end once his first victory had finally been achieved. That is a reasonable-sized monkey off the back. Last year, the losses came in the cynical broader scheme of modern football, with slightly less sourness left in the mouth. This year, though, there has been nothing but empty loss.

"It has been a hard couple of years, we have been putting in the work — everyone has — but we have been doing it hard and today we finally grasped Ratts' game plan for four quarters and it worked for us," Scotland said.

This notion of timing in football is timeless. Where was the additional effort last week when leading Essendon? Where was it last year in the corresponding game against Collingwood when Fevola — also running hot — came off the ground? Was Collingwood, as poor as it was yesterday, unlucky to strike Carlton on a week of redoubled determination?

"It was spoken about at three-quarter-time to cast our minds back to last year (when the Blues could have beaten Collingwood but fell narrowly short) and not to let that happen again," said defender Bret Thornton. "I can just say that out on the ground, all of the blokes were just hammering each other not to drop this one, to stay on. Throughout the week, we had made such an effort not to lose this one.

"I think it was if we had gone nought-and-four, the season was as good as over, so it was a real emphasis to work through the four quarters.

"It shouldn't come to that — we have been in all three games — so just to win was great. We said before the first bounce: 'Ratts has put belief in us, he is enduring a lot through the media', so we made it a real emphasis to do it for him today for sure."

That said, it was a side determinedly low-key in victory, save for Dick Pratt, who excitedly shuffled out on to the ground to greet startled players with a handshake.

The song might not have been sung for 10 months but it was the only moment of verse in the rooms. Neither captain Chris Judd, vice-captain Nick Stevens nor match hero Brendan Fevola would talk about the game or the win with the written media.

Old Carlton — Fevola, Waite, Scotland, Thornton — were all tremendous. Obviously none more so than Fevola, with seven goals and a hand in a couple more.

However, the sweetness of this moment was in witnessing New Carlton make the difference because this was a win constructed on the younger players' contribution.