COLLINGWOOD midfielder Dane Swan hopes the Magpies’ unexpected 23-point loss to Carlton on Sunday will act as the spark that ignites his side’s season.

Swan, 24, is optimistic the Pies’ most recent performance will have a similar effect to the way Geelong’s memorable 2007 round five loss to the Kangaroos initiated a winning streak that would eventuate in the claiming of football’s greatest prize.

“We’ve got a good group of young kids, and after we watch the match review on Monday, we’ll completely forget about this game and focus on North Melbourne,” he told collingwoodfc.com.au after Sunday’s game.

“Hopefully, a good win there will kick-start the rest of our season.

“We know we’ve got a good side, and with “Burnsy” [Scott Burns] pulling out today, it was a big loss for us because he’s the heart and soul of our club now.

“He’s someone who can get us going in the middle and he didn’t play, so hopefully he’s back next week to give us a lift.”

Swan said the Collingwood players were unconcerned they missed a chance to write Carlton into the history books, as a Blues’ loss on Sunday would have resulted in the club achieving its worst-ever losing streak of 15 matches.

Instead, he said Collingwood were more angered by the fact they are now level with six other teams, points-wise, on the ladder.

“It hurts for us that we’re not 3-1,” he said.

“We’re back in the middle of the pack now, and we have to focus on trying to break away from that pack and get up to top three, where we know we want to be and where we’re good enough to be.

“There’s probably a bit more sting because of the build-up, but we sting with every game we lose because we know we’re a very good side.

“If we play the way we want to play, we should be a top-four side. It wasn’t our day today. We’ve got a six-day turnaround, so we won’t have time to sit down and think about it for too long.”

Swan admitted the Magpies were ultimately “not ready” for a Carlton onslaught, and said his side had “no answer” for the Blues’ Brendan Fevola-led charge once it kicked into action.

“We pride ourselves on our fitness, and we obviously rotate a lot so we thought we could keep doing that and run them off their legs in the last quarter,” he said.

“‘Fev’ got one really early and that sort of stung us a bit, and then we kicked two or three in a row, and that got us within a couple of goals.

“But … they just kicked one when we really needed to, and they just broke us.”

Swan also said coach Mick Malthouse couldn’t hide his dissatisfaction straight after the game.

“He was very disappointed in the way we played, and so he should be,” he said.

“We weren’t ready, and we probably took it a bit too easy. We know how big these clashes are, and they just stung us early and we couldn’t recover.”