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CARLTON coach Brett Ratten said those dubbing his midfield as the ‘Fab Four’ are a long way off the mark.

Ahead of Saturday night’s clash with the Brisbane Lions at the Gabba, Ratten said Chris Judd, Marc Murphy, Bryce Gibbs and Nick Stevens were a good quartet but a long way from having the impact of the original ‘Fab Four’.

That midfield was made up of Lions coach Michael Voss, veteran onballer Simon Black, current-day Bulldog Jason Akermanis and Geelong assistant Nigel Lappin, who terrorised the AFL throughout the Lions’ premiership run from 2001-03.

“I don’t know if you guys get it up here (Brisbane), but the media down there (Melbourne) can beat it up really quickly and then probably deflate it really quickly as well,” Ratten said.

“Those boys were in pretty good touch for a few weeks. Are they the Fab Four? No, they’re not.

“You look at Geelong’s midfield, they’ve done it over two or three years, so our blokes are working extremely hard to forge their own reputations... the Murphys and Gibbs and Kreuzer and these types but they’re no Fab Four, they’re just working extremely hard on their game to improve.”

Speaking on playing the Lions, Ratten said getting first hands on the ball was crucial.

Carlton have lost their only three interstate matches this season but won the last time they came to Brisbane in round 21 last year after turning around a 32-point three quarter-time deficit.

The Blues also had the better of the contest in round two this season.

“There’s a few blokes we have to target in stopping their influence on the game,” Ratten said.

“Sometimes you can rate players if they play well against you, you can hold them in high esteem, and (Simon) Black has always done extremely well against Carlton so we’ll have to stop his influence on the game.

“It was an interesting game last year, there was a lot of goals scored very quickly from centre bounces.

“At the Gabba, (goals from) centre bounces can be scored very quickly and it’s going to be who gets their hands on the footy first and the effectiveness away from that stoppage.

“We remember last year, a fantastic victory ... but our record interstate this year has been appalling really.”

While Ratten admitted Jarrad Waite’s season-ending injury was a huge loss to the club, he said the flexibility of players like Setanta O’hAilpin and Brad Fisher went part of the way to covering his absence.

Up forward he said Brendan Fevola’s six goals against West Coast last week was like ‘the Brendan of old’ but knows getting him shots on goal this weekend will not be easy.

“Brisbane have lost the stoppages the last few weeks but have really counter attacked well,” he said.

“The way they do it through players back in front of the forwards will probably have to be the thing that we’ll have to combat on Saturday night.”