Carlton coach Brett Ratten says only giving Geelong’s Josh Hunt a fine for stomping on the hand of Blues’ forward Eddie Betts sends the wrong message to junior players.
Hunt has accepted a $1350 sanction from the AFL’s match review panel for misconduct following the first-quarter incident in Friday night’s clash at Etihad Stadium, in which the Blues went down by 12 points in their fourth loss in five matches.
“What can you say? The decisions that are made, they go right down to grass-roots footy,” Ratten told reporters on Tuesday.
“Are these the things we want to see when we go and watch our kids play footy?”
The Blues travelled to Perth on Tuesday for their round-12 clash with third-placed West Coast on Thursday.
Andrew Carrazzo, who broke his shoulder in round four against Essendon, was among the players who boarded the flight along with defender Heath Scotland, who missed last week’s game with a calf strain.
The Blues are battling a third consecutive six-day break but Ratten is banking on the injection of fresh players to rejuvenate his side.
“Hopefully Scotland and Carrazzo will play,” Ratten said, adding Carrazzo has been back running for five weeks and has done contact drills for one or two weeks.
The midfield tagger had originally been scheduled to play reserves during Carlton’s AFL bye in round 13.
“Scotland is one we thought would be out for two to three (weeks) and it has pulled up a lot better,” Ratten added.
Ratten is happy with his ninth-placed side’s efforts against Geelong and he has also questioned the benefit for the Eagles of being well-rested after a bye.
“Who knows what the bye will do for teams this year?,” Ratten said.
“Some times will lose momentum. It will be interesting to see how they (Eagles) respond.”
Ratten said the challenge for the weary Blues would be more mental than physical this week.
“The way the players played was exactly the way we want to be perceived. I thought they had a real crack (against Geelong),” he said.
“I don’t think you can just flick a switch (to regain top form). If it takes two, three, four weeks, we just have to keep chipping away and hopefully the tide turns.”