Fans should blame a lack of defensive pressure for Carlton's draw with Richmond rather than making Jesse Motlop a scapegoat, Blues skipper Patrick Cripps says.
Motlop, 19, played on at centre half-back in the last 90 seconds, rather than slowing the play as Carlton held a six-point lead.
Motlop fired a quick handball to Lochie O'Brien who surged forward and bombed inside 50, before Tiger defenders chopped the ball off forward Harry McKay to find a levelling goal with seconds left.
But Cripps said it was unfair to single out that one decision, instead pointing the finger at himself and the rest of the team for failing to stop Richmond's run.
"As a team, with not long left on the clock you want that composure, especially coming out of the (defensive) 50 metres ... we can find another mark there and help set up the ground, (that) would be ideal, " he told Fox Footy.
"It's probably different if there's four or five minutes left on the clock and you're trying to win the game ... but if Harry marks that we're probably not talking about it.
"But everyone looks at the stuff with the ball, there's a lot of choices, me included, behind the ball how we could have squeezed the ground up.
"Mistakes happen in games, that's the nature of footy but there's definitely things behind the ball we could have done better to fix an error like that."
Cripps echoed thoughts shared by Blues coach Michael Voss, who said Carlton sides of season's past would have lost comfortably in the same circumstances.
Richmond won the inside 50s 66-45 and marks inside 50 11-5, with the Blues' stout defence finding a way to limit them
"We lost the territory battle in terms of inside 50s, we put our defence under a fair bit of pressure," Cripps said.
"Our defensive systems, particularly our back six, held up ... they had 60-odd inside 50s, to be able to absorb that and absorb their momentum, in previous years, it could have been six or seven goals in a row."
