WE PLAYED paintball on Monday, which was planned before Saturday's loss, but it was good to have a few laughs, although we've got a few sore spots as well – I got hit quite a few times.

It was good fun. We played last year as well, so it's become something the boys have become accustomed to. We took the opportunity to get out there and put last week's game behind us and look forward to the rest of the season.

It's a very long year – for both the older and the younger players, and we've got quite a few on either end of the spectrum – so it was good to give the players a break away from football and try to refresh their bodies for the next two games.

We got smashed on the weekend by a team playing very good football.

We need to learn from that. We got beaten in nearly every aspect of the game, to be honest. Sometimes you can lose in a couple of areas and still win the game. Unfortunately, we didn't win one.

Hopefully, we can learn from that and take it in for the rest of the season. We all know teams have areas they need to improve in, and ours were exploited on the weekend, even though it's something we've been trying to rectify all year.

I'm sure the leadership group would have sat down earlier this week, like they do after every game, and had a good chat about the game and “where to from here?”.

The leadership group has been very good this year, and I'm sure they'll instil in the players a real sense of redemption this week. When you lose by 90-odd points you can lose a bit of credibility, and hopefully we can come out and perform a lot better this week and get some back.

People have been saying we've got a really easy run home, but Carlton-Collingwood games are always big and are always close, especially with the year that Carlton has had, And with Anthony Koutoufides retiring and a new coach as well, they have a lot to play for.

That can be really dangerous. They have a lot of great players, and we have to make sure we're on the top of our game. If we play like we did last week, Carlton is going to beat us.

We all know that, when a new coach starts, the players seem to play better. Brett Ratten took over last week, and the game plan for Carlton seemed to turn a little bit too. We've got to make sure we don't just think it's going to happen for us.

Kouta will be doing a lap of honour before the game, and that doesn't help us because it provides more motivation for their players. A lot of them played a lot of games with Kouta, and he's a icon of the footy club, and no doubt they're going to come out full of energy at the start of the game.

At the same time, we have a lot to play for as well. Pretty much our season is on the line this week – we've got five games to go and we've got to win at least three to make the finals.

No game is a "gimme" these days, and Carlton is going to be very hard to beat.

Tanking has been mentioned a bit lately. There are a few theories going around about the priority draft picks at the moment. I believe the bottom two or three or four sides should have a lotto – put their names in a hat and toss them up, with first out of the hat geting the first pick.

There is also a suggestion that ninth position should get first pick, but putting the bottom four sides in a draft and whoever gets pulled out gets first pick – that would stop the so-called tanking.

I think in most years there are four teams that are head and shoulders above the rest, and eight teams that are in the middle, and then there are the last four. That's how the league seems to run, so I think those bottom four teams should share the chance to have the No.1 pick.

At Carlton, Brett Ratten obviously wants to win as many games as he can to give his credentials to coach next year the best chance, so they're not going to be tanking a game even if, on the whole, the club administration might want them to lose.

Players don't want to lose, but many things in the AFL aren't even.

I think the system can definitely be fixed up.