CARLTON coach David Teague remains confident in his side despite the pressure ramping up on his future after the Blues' dismal loss to North Melbourne on Saturday.
After a tight first half, the Blues were blown away in the third term with the Roos slamming on seven goals as they cruised to a big 39-point win.
The loss all but ended Carlton's faint finals hopes, but Teague still believes his side will get there in the future.
"I have absolute belief in this group," he said.
"I believe there's a lot more. I think we've seen some growth over the last period and today was really disappointing because we didn't follow that trend so that hurts. That hurts the playing group, the coaching staff, our fans.
"We've got some work to do. We're not good enough, clearly, and that's why we're not playing finals. But going forward this group can play finals. I'm very confident of that."
BLUES v ROOS Full match coverage and stats
Teague said North's ball use 'was better than ours' and they did the simple things better than his side.
"To North Melbourne's credit, their ball use was better than ours," Teague said.
"Their ability to win the ball back and then go through us I thought was superior to ours. I also thought they got on top in the centre bounce and got the ball going in their half and we had trouble getting it down to our end and then when we did get it down to our end our ability to finish our work and hit the scoreboard wasn't good enough.
"I thought North Melbourne were just stronger than us. I thought they did the fundamentals, the basics, better than us. Some simple things like spoiling from behind, for whatever reason I thought there was a slight shift in our mindset. We weren't at our ruthless best."
North coach David Noble was delighted with the win that moves the Roos a step closer to lifting off the bottom of the ladder.
They are now equal with 17th-placed Hawthorn and Noble said his side is motivated to not finish last.
"I probably don't need a carrot to not win the wooden spoon," Noble said.
"I'm pretty motivated when it comes to that, and I think our players are.
"There's no doubt it took us a little while to get going, but it was a whole new gameplan for us to how we were defending and how we wanted to create score.
"We couldn't get our best team together until the back half of the year, but what it allowed us to do was grow those young guys coming forward. I think now we step into each game for the remaining part of the year with really strong belief on what we can do and deliver based on the wins we've had since the bye."
