CARLTON onballer Adam Bentick says its time the Blues stopped using youth as an excuse for its six-game losing streak.
The 21-year-old, who had 15 possessions in the side’s 19-point loss to Adelaide, said youth was only a minor factor in comparison to inconsistency.
“Youth is an issue but we’ve got to stage now where we’ve played nine games and we can’t keep using it as an excuse,” he said.
“We’ve got to move forward, we’ve got to get some wins on the board and I think we can because even though we’ve been losing, the group is growing each week.”
Bentick said the spirit and passion within the group was as high as it’s ever been despite the 2-7 start to the season, a sentiment echoed by coach Denis Pagan, who said he was “proud to be the guys’ coach”.
“The spirit and enthusiasm around the club has been sensational,” Bentick said.
Player and coach were also on the same page when it came to dissecting the reasons why the Blues, after leading by one point at the seven-minute mark of the final term, were overrun for the seventh time this year.
“We’ve butchered the ball and given away some silly free kicks, which at the end of the day has cost us,” Bentick said.
“We’ve put in some great efforts and been competitive in most of the games but then there’s certain patches within games where we struggle and it’s costing us in the wash up.
“It even more frustrating because despite all the problems, over the last couple of weeks we set some indicators that we wanted to achieve and funnily enough we’ve been able to achieve those but we just can’t get over the line.”
The rugged midfielder is in no doubt as to what will put the side back in the winner’s circle.
“Week to week we need everyone contributing but at the moment some guys are up when others are down and the next week its reverse,” he said.
“It even happens within games. Everyone producing an even effort all day is what will get us a win.
“Last week we trained really well and everything is going well off the track but we just can’t seem to put that into a four-quarter effort at the moment. It’s really letting us down and we have to rectify that and put in a good effort for the whole 120 minutes.”
Bentick said the fact youngsters Bryce Gibbs and Marc Murphy were getting valuable game time was a huge positive, while also acknowledging the debut of Adam Hartlett.Seven of the Blues 22 that faced the Crows had played less than 30 games.
“I know it’s different for some of the younger guys but I’m sure some of the older blokes are getting pretty sick of losing,” he said.
Carlton faces a daunting task this week against the Western Bulldog at the MCG.
