CARLTON’S Heath Scotland says the ramifications of Nick Stevens’ season ending neck injury are only just being felt by the club now.

In the wake of the Blues’ 24-point loss to Collingwood, the 26-year-old playmaker said at this stage of the club’s development, it was unable to cover the loss of its premier midfielder.

“It’s a massive loss. He’s an elite midfielder in the competition and always takes the best tagger from the opposition,” he said.

“You can’t underestimate his loss to the side and then to lose Cameron Cloke at training and Bret Thornton hurt us.”

Cloke dislocated his shoulder for the fourth time at training during the week while Thornton was replaced in the selected side by Jason Saddington.

“We’re not at a stage in our development where we can afford to lose key players. It’s not an excuse but we’re not as experienced underneath as some other sides to cover that.”

Only five Blues – Andrew Carrazzo, Ryan Houlihan, Marc Murphy, Kade Simpson and Scotland – had more than 20 possessions against the Magpies while nine touched the ball less than 10 times.

Scotland said at half time, with his side leading by 19 points, the game was there for the taking.

“We’re shattered. To be up by three goals at halftime and playing good footy, to fall away is shattering,” he said.

“Like last year, we were in a position to win a game but not to go on with it is disappointing for everyone at the club.”

After being overrun by St Kilda the previous week, Scotland doubted fitness was an issue, but highlighted confidence and youth as possible weaknesses.

The Blues trailed by one point at the final change but the Magpies slammed on six unanswered goals in the opening 20 minutes of the last quarter to romp away from the hapless Blues.

“Sometimes it’s hard for a young group to be able to maintain intensity over the four-quarter journey and when that happens the confidence starts to dip,” he said

“Whatever it is we have to address it because we’ve gone from 2-1 to 2-5 pretty quickly.”

Scotland is sure the side Blues are vulnerable when the game becomes a free flowing affair.

“We know that we’re are not going to win games when it’s free-wheeling and the opposition gets a lot of uncontested possession,” he said.

“We wanted to shut them down and win the hard ball and we did that in the first half because we led in all the indicators. I don’t what they (indicators) were at the end of the game but they’d have been nowhere near the output of the first.”