'You can't shy on culture': Carlton great's stinging shot at club

Carlton legend Mark Maclure has delivered a damning critique of his former club, suggesting heads should roll after the Blues slumped to a sorry new low.

The Blues slumped to their heaviest defeat of the season at Giants Stadium on Sunday, thumped by 93-points by GWS.

It was the eighth loss for Carlton already this season, with the embarrassing nature of the defeat heaping even more pressure on under-fire coach Brendon Bolton.

Maclure, a three-time premiership player and former Blues captain, said the problems at the club went much further than the coach.

“I think there should be a lot of people worried about their positions at the football club,” Maclure said.

Maclure said he expected the Blues to stick with Bolton for the remainder of the season, but took a swipe at the club’s board for their lack of communication to fans.

“This business is about talking to the people and this business is admitting where you’re at and stating it and working on things to improve,” he told SEN.

The Blues great described his former club’s last 20 years as probably the worst he’s ever seen, and cited an inherent culture problem as a major factor.

“You become a product of your environment,” he said.

“You can have poor performances. Everyone does. But you can’t be shy on culture and I think that’s where they’re falling apart.

“There’s a bunch of kids that will come through all right. But they need some really good nurturing and some toughening up as well.”

All eyes will be on how the Blues respond in their next match against St Kilda at Marvel Stadium on Sunday.

GWS defeat cuts Blues deep

Co-captain Sam Docherty wasn’t expecting Carlton to plummet back to earth in the form of their embarrassing 93-point loss to GWS.

Injured co-captain Docherty said the Blues thought the worst of their struggles were over after an honourable round-eight loss to Collingwood.

However, Docherty said the GWS thumping was another bitter pill to swallow.

“They’ve all been hard (losses) in their own certain ways,” Docherty told RSN radio on Monday.

“The Gold Coast game we let slip late in the game and we were disappointed with how we played that last little bit.

“The North game hurt as well because … we played six or seven games that were pretty consistent and that was a bit of a blip on the radar.

“This hurts because we thought we were past it.”

The Giants kicked away to a 40-point lead at quarter-time to virtually kill off the contest.

Docherty highlighted the seven-goals-to-one first quarter as a recurring issue after poor starts against Richmond and North Melbourne across the first nine rounds.

“I probably learnt less than two weeks ago that we have to rock up with a brutal mindset early in the game otherwise you do get punched in the face against a good side, and that’s what happened,” he said.

Sitting out a second straight season with a ruptured ACL, the All-Australian defender called on the Blues to show more against St Kilda at

“We’ve got to ask hard questions and we’ll do that internally this week and, hopefully, we’ll get the response next week,” Docherty said.

“It would be naive to think that … these losses don’t burn with us and they don’t hurt us.”

With AAP