CARLTON can not forget about this season and start rebuilding for the future after it's 0-3 start, with coach Mick Malthouse challenging his players to "get back off the canvas" and prove their doubters wrong.
The Blues have dropped senior players Jarrad Waite and Jeff Garlett for Saturday's clash against Melbourne and will unveil prized youngster Patrick Cripps, who was recruited with pick No.13 in the 2013 NAB AFL Draft.
They have drifted out of top eight calculations following their 81-point loss to Essendon, but Malthouse said his focus remained squarely on the immediate future - not on fast-tracking a rebuild.
"If I don't attack every week of the year until it's mathematically impossible to make the eight then I let down so many people by just accepting where we are - I will never accept defeat," Malthouse said on Friday.
"We've got an eye on next year and the year after, we can't deny that.
"But I'm not one that just goes we'll forget this year and we will stagger along and cop the criticism and get ready for next year. I don't believe in that.
"My obligation to this football club, which has been like this with any football club I've ever been part of, is that we will give of ourselves every week as best we possibly can."
Malthouse drew on history to illustrate Carlton's predicament, quoting Irish War of Independence figure Terence MacSwiney, who said: "It is not those who can inflict the most, but those who can suffer the most who will conquer".
"It's a great quote because we've just got to endure," Malthouse said.
"The mark of a man is getting off the canvas. Not how many times you fall.
"The same sort of people continually want to test and question game plans or personnel or where I sit, but I've prevailed on one principle.
"It's the effort to get back off the canvas and keep going and over-ride any doubts that may come from people who've got different agendas and we just keep going."
Malthouse said Waite and Garlett had been dropped because they weren't meeting expectations after combining for six goals in three games and the club could not accept last week's loss.
He said Garlett was still overcoming a shoulder injury.
"One's a leading goalkicker, one has got the potential to be a leading goalkicker, one's been around the football club for a long time," Malthouse said.
"There are certain expectations that we have to have and if we can't reach those expectations, the reality check is perhaps go back, find your form in regard to that area and become more accustomed to what we expect.
"He (Waite) has been around the club so long that players look to him, so he's got to go back and find that form that gives the players in front of him confidence that he is going to take the mark, kick the goal or contest the football."
Cripps will make his debut at a time when Carlton supporters are looking to the future, but Malthouse said expectations would be controlled.
He said the strongly-built midfielder had leadership qualities and would help the team straight away.
"If you had to explain him to some of the old-time Carlton supporters you'd say he's bigger than 'Big Nick' (John Nicholls) ... but he's not a ruckman," Malthouse said.
"The most important thing is he knows his role and he fits in, gets games under his belt and we can develop him from there.
"We're very confident that he is a player of the future for our football club. Not only a player, but leadership."
