CARLTON won't sweep its demoralising 109-point loss to Melbourne under the carpet, with Blues coach Brendon Bolton demanding his players "confront" Sunday's game and absorb its harsh lessons.

After trailing by three points at quarter-time, the Blues scored just four more goals for the game as the Demons piled on 22.

The loss was the Blues' biggest in Bolton's two-and-a-half year reign, while the Demons' final score of 159 was also the biggest they had conceded in that time.

Without injured spearheads Levi Casboult and Charlie Curnow, Carlton scored just 50 points for the match – the third time this season it has failed to reach 60.

Bolton told reporters after the game he was glad his team had a six-day break before their round 10 match against Geelong, saying that encounter couldn't come quickly enough.

However, he said his coaching staff and players wouldn't turn their minds to the Geelong clash until they had completed their review of Sunday's thrashing.

"I've asked our players to confront this game and reflect on it really strongly. I don't want them to let go of it until we've got through the review – it's really important," Bolton said.

"And the coaches will do the same, they won't let go of it until we've got through the review and then we'll focus on Geelong.

"We've walked under a ladder in terms of injuries this year, but we're not going to let a young group use that as an out, because then you've got an easy getaway.

"We want to lose and grow and if it's, 'Oh, we'll be right when we get others back' it gives youngsters an out. There's a reality there, but we're not going to accept that because it's not high-performance thinking.

"We won't sweep it under the carpet, that's really important to understand. We want to learn from it, we want to grow from it and we want to challenge it."

The Blues suffered a scare late in the first term of Sunday's game when captain Marc Murphy, who was returning after five weeks on the sidelines with plantar fasciitis, came off the ground and was assessed in the rooms.

Murphy returned in the second quarter and played out the game, finishing with 19 possessions and a goal.

Bolton was optimistic his skipper had not suffered a recurrence of his foot injury.

"He's got a bit of a niggle there, but the good sign is he got through the game, so we'll see how he pulls up during the week," the Blues coach said.

"I'm not sure if he'll need a scan on it. It may not be that significant that it needs a scan, but we'll check that."

Bolton expected Carlton would be bolstered next round by the returns of Ed (suspension) and Charlie Curnow (quad).

"He should be fine, Charlie. (He had) just some tightness and soreness in his quad. He trained really hard this week and (it's) just disappointing that he didn't come up late," he said.

Bolton was also confident Zac Fisher would be fit to take on Geelong despite having his left calf strapped in the first quarter of Sunday's game, while he said David Cuningham and Andrew Phillips had put their hands up for senior recalls in the VFL on Saturday.