CARLTON coach Brett Ratten has played down the club's record-equalling 14 game losing streak after last night's 16-point loss to Essendon at the MCG.
"This is not about right now, it's about the future and how quickly we can get the Carlton Football Club into the finals," Ratten said.
"We need to win games to do that (and) it's not about records.
"The Carlton football list has changed from 2007 to 2008, so the record when you look at it, involves people that weren't even here. We're looking at 2008, not 2007."
He said reversing the club's losing streak starts with putting last night's loss behind them and focussing on Collingwood next week, again at the MCG.
"That's the great thing about big games … as a player you think about what you have to do to get yourself into the action.
"To play Collingwood here (at the MCG) with 80,000 people here will be fantastic for our young players. I don't think psychologically we have to do anything to kick start the blokes or get them into action."
After leading at the last change last night by a point the Blues fell off the pace.
"At the end of the day when the opposition takes the ball inside (50 metres) 51 times and scores around 35 times, that's a big percentage and we need to reduce that," Ratten said.
"Our ball movement and the way we played was a lot better, but there were patches where our pressure wasn't good enough and we just let goals slip through our fingers at critical times of the game.
"In the third quarter with just under three minutes to go and we're 19 points up and we go in one point up, that can be demoralising for a team.
We go in 19 points up and it might have been a different mentality going into the last quarter for Essendon and for us.
"We're doing a lot of hard work for not a hell of a lot of reward because we let it (the ball) slip through at critical times."
The only disappointment for Essendon, who play the Western Bulldogs on Friday night, was a hamstring injury to Leroy Jetta.
Ratten said he was pleased with skipper Chris Judd's game.
"We cranked him up to 85 or 90%. Chris' performance, particularly through that third quarter, he was back to his brilliant best.
"Taking the ball away from stoppages, running, involving other players and not just offensively, his defensive running to cover players was first class. I thought he played a terrific game."
Essendon coach Matthew Knights described the victory as an encouraging start to the season following on a good win over North Melbourne and a pasting by Geelong.
"We knew coming here tonight Carlton were going to be hugely formidable," he said. "Chris Judd and Nick Stevens, those sort of guys are getting fitter by the week, so I said to the guys it's a good reward after three rounds to be two and one."
Knights said he was pleased with his side's composure and said McPhee was a strong target and McVeigh a significant midfielder. However, he was disappointed Carlton's onballers constantly broke Essendon tackles.
"We were very ordinary defensively and that's something we're really going to have to work on as a group, to make sure we're better with our defensive actions so we put a lot more pressure on," he said.
With AAP
