Carlton midfielder Ed Curnow has admitted some players may have gone into Sunday’s loss to North Melbourne thinking it was just going to happen.
The Blues were jumped early, kicking one goal in the first half on their way to a 58-point smacking, where the final scoreboard flattered them.
Curnow, who was playing his 150th game, said some hard truths were exchanged post-match.
“We came off the ground and into the coach’s room to have a discussion about the ‘why’, really,” he told SEN Breakfast.
“Why did we not show up, why was the contest work poor, the players kind of chatting through that.
“In the end you can’t just wipe the game. There’s so much value placed on every AFL game, we need to get something out of it.
“It’s too important a year for everyone’s development so we sat around and talked about it and it was pretty tough to do.
“The boys were embarrassed by it and basically we came to the assumption that a lot of us just thought it was going to happen and thought the effort and contest work where we’ve been so good, we were just going to roll into the game and we were going to be able to deliver that kind of consistent effort which has been strong all year and yeah, we took it for granted.
“It’s almost like an embarrassment and feeling of guilt when you deliver that kind of result.
“It’s quite disappointing and different players handle it differently.
“All the planning and preparation is done during the week, which is run predominantly by the coaches and then when you run out, the work is done and it’s up to the players.”
“It just makes it extremely disappointing when you can’t give a boo in the contest and our work rate was just soft as well.”
Carlton will be hoping to bounce back next weekend against Collingwood at the MCG.