IT’S A mark of the football team that Jacob Weitering wants Carlton to become that his immediate post-match feeling on Good Friday was one of frustration.

Not for the 25-point win that continued the Blues’ unbeaten start to the year . . . but rather, the manner in which the team conceded the last four goals of the game in the final minutes. 

However, Weitering acknowledged that it may have been the perfectionist in him — after all, as has been a constant message out of Carlton in the past 18 months, it’s best to learn while winning rather than the alternative.

Speaking on ABC’s The Lead on Saturday, Weitering dissected the Round 4 win, stressing the importance of perspective in the wash-up.

“I’ll be honest here, it was a good thing the camera wasn’t on me! I was probably as furious as ‘Vossy’ in that last five or six minutes,” Weitering said.

“In my eight years at the Club, we’ve spent a lot of time losing — so, at the same time, you’ve got to flip this into a positive. We’ve learned a lot of lessons in the past with no points in the back pocket.

“The way we want to finish the game is with our identity, and that’s tough football. They showed us up, so it’s something we can go to work on.”

The discussion in the aftermath was an obvious one, but a conversation which was always going to be had. For a team which missed out on a finals spot last year by 0.6 of a per cent, how costly could a late lapse prove to be?

Weitering didn’t want to be drawn on history, but rather, what the Blues are doing now to take hold of their own destiny.

He looks at the Club’s senior heads - playing and otherwise - as a driving force behind avoiding any potential repeat.

“It all comes back to the values and identity we’re building at the Club,” he said.

“In my eight years, in ‘Crippa’s’ 10 years, ‘Doc’ is the same, Ed Curnow — we’ve experienced a fair bit of losing. Sometimes you’ve got to take a step back and appreciate the position you’re in: winning is pretty handy. And you don’t want to go back to that losing feeling or culture.

“The guys we’ve got now in Harry, Charlie, ‘Walshy’, ‘Crippa’, ‘Doc’ - I can keep reeling off names - are guys that have higher motivations and that is to win a premiership for this club.

“However, it’s a step-by-step process.”

That next step is a trip to Adelaide on Thursday night, as the Blues take on the Crows to kick off the first instalment of Gather Round.

When Carlton heads to Adelaide Oval, it’ll be looking for its first win at the venue since AFL games started being played there in 2014. 

It’s another “monument game”, as Weitering puts it, which will continue to hold the team to account.

“We’re building a base and we take it week by week, with 14 of 16 points,” he said.

“We’ve got to keep ticking them off, and next week against Adelaide is one. It’s going to be a real test for our team, our identity and our humility.”