BRENDON Bolton admits Carlton’s nightmare season has pushed him to the brink, but he insists the two-win campaign will pay the Blues back in the future.

Speaking after the Blues’ season came to a horrific end in a 104-point smashing from Adelaide, in a game where Charlie Curnow suffered a knee injury, Bolton remained resolute.

“We’re all human. We’re all people and we’re so invested in wanting this club to go where it needs to go that you do go on an emotional rollercoaster, there’s no doubt,” Bolton said.

“However, the one thing is when you do go on that emotional rollercoaster you don’t get distracted or go off-plan. Very easily you can do that with emotion — make rash decisions.

“We know the challenging reality of age profile and injury this year, but we’ve never once used them as an excuse and stayed absolutely resolute in this plan.

“It’s been testing, yes, but it’s also been quite fulfilling that our club has tightened.”

Bolton said Carlton was not an excuse club, but pointed to a horrible run with injury that coincided with a further stripping back of the list.

“There’s going to be some time where we look back and say this time paid us back. We’ve had about 240-odd games missed through injury when the best teams sit about 100,” he said.

“That puts enormous pressure on but it also, which I think will help us, has made us play guys in multiple positions that we wouldn’t normally do and we played a lot of our youngsters earlier than we thought.”

Bolton admitted Carlton would now be “open to the discussion” of applying for a priority pick, but he said the AFL needed to go further when it came to ensuring the equalisation of the competition.

“How and what that looks like … is not just us talking about assistance,” he said.

“What does free agency look like? Does it support those at the top and keeps reinforcing that? I think it’s a bit broader than the priority pick conversation that the AFL needs to consider.

“We’ve made some real Carlton-first decisions the last few years … it takes time, but you also don’t want to the gap to get totally ridiculous in our competition and I think it’s broader than priority pick.

“We’ve got an incredible amount of work to do. It’s made us really determined and we’ve got to be fanatical in our approach pre-season to grow on every front.

“They need a good rest, this group. But there’s no gold nugget coming, there’s a lot of hard work coming for us to grow as a footy team.”

Bolton said Charlie Curnow had strained his medial ligament when he left the field with a knee injury in the third quarter.

“He’s hurt his medial. I don’t know to what grade so hopefully it’s not a severe one,” Bolton said.

“It depends to what level, but the early reports are it’s not a significant one.”