Carlton coach Brett Ratten admits he has made the mistake of being swept up in the emotion of AFL blockbusters, as he seeks to reverse a winless record against Essendon.

The Blues boss said candidly on Wednesday he had focused too strongly in the past on the history and passion of playing the club’s biggest rivals and led his players down the same path.

The result against the Bombers has been losses in all five matches since Ratten took the job late in 2007.

His aim now is to ignore the hype and treat the big-drawing matches as simply another chance for four points – starting against Essendon at the MCG on Saturday night.

“Is it a bigger build-up (at Carlton) because it’s Essendon or Collingwood? No,” Ratten said.

“We’re going to keep it pretty simple and the way we go about it we won’t try and change too much.

“That’s something that maybe as a coach I got caught up in a little bit myself.

“So we’ll keep it on the straight and narrow or on the medium line, not just escalate your emotions, keep it in check and just make sure we focus on getting the job done.”

He said previously he had erred by mixing tactical instruction with history lessons before big games.

“Sometimes you look back on history and try and educate the players on what’s gone on in the past and maybe that’s been a bigger focus in the Essendon and Collingwood games compared to some of the other games,” he said.

“I think that’s something that this year I made a focus that I don’t want to do that – like, we’ve won the last two or we’ve lost the last two.

“This is at present, this team, the 22 that we can put out versus their 22.

“I know it sounds very simple but maybe then the emotion gets taken out and actually you’re thinking your way through, to make sure the players get the information that they do instead of worrying about is this a bigger build-up.

“The four points at round one versus the four points at round 22 are exactly the same.

“They are simple messages but I think maybe in the past I’ve looked and built these games up a little bit more myself.”

He also dismissed the notion that Carlton had a particularly difficult draw with games against Essendon, Adelaide away and Geelong to come in the next three weeks.

“It doesn’t change for us. It’s amazing – everyone says you’ve got a difficult draw but I’m just looking for the easy part of the draw, where does that come in this?” he said

“I think all the clubs – and how even the competition is – the draw’s very hard for everyone.”

Ratten said that the shape of both Essendon and Carlton had changed this year.

“This is 2010 and their personnel is extremely different from this year to last year – similar to ours, so I think we won’t worry about the past.”

Ratten pointed to Essendon’s loss of Matthew Lloyd, Scott Lucas and Andrew Lovett and Carlton’s departing players Brendan Fevola, Nick Stevens and Cameron Cloke.