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IT MAY not have been part of their plan for the year, but Kade Simpson says the Blues plan to hang onto their spot in the top eight now that they’ve broken into the league’s upper echelon.

“I knew if we won we’d be in the eight, but it’s a pretty good feeling; we probably haven’t been there since I’ve been at the club,” Simpson said after Carlton’s 30-point win over Collingwood on Sunday.

“We didn’t really set too many long-term goals at the start of the year, but it’s good to be in there now and if we can just maintain our form, we should be able to match it with most of the sides.

“If we can maintain our form [we can] stay in there, so someone has to really kick us out of there before we’ll let them.”

Confidence and self-belief are powerful forces in football and Simpson admitted both areas had received a huge boost after last week’s come from behind win against Port Adelaide on their own patch.

The Blues certainly needed to call on their new-found strengths when they found themselves down by 25 points midway through the third quarter despite dominating the opening term.

“We thought we were in the game, we missed a few easy shots in the first quarter, but our pressure was good and we thought we were using the ball not too badly, so we knew if we maintained that we’d hopefully run over them in the end,” Simpson said.

“I think the group has a real belief at the moment that we can come back, if we stick to our structures, from almost any margin which we’ve shown in the last two weeks. We’d prefer to lead the whole way, but footy doesn’t work that way.

“The group’s just growing awesomely at the moment, there’re so many young guys but we’re just gelling really well at the moment.”

Carlton’s pressure and ability to win the contested ball were features of the match and Simpson said the key areas had been the focus of their preparation.

“We knew that was one of their strong points, that and their tackling, so we knew we had to match it in those areas,” he said.

“We’re not too bad at the contested ball either so we just stuck to our structures and it ended up working in the end.”