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WITH Brendan Fevola kept quiet and no Chris Judd, Carlton coach Brett Ratten has praised his players’ for stepping up to overrun Richmond at the MCG on Saturday.

Fevola was well held by Kelvin Moore before firing up in the last quarter to finish with four goals for the day, while stand-in skipper Nick Stevens was superb in Judd's absence, finishing with 26 touches and 10 tackles.

“Everyone thinks Fev has to kick six, seven or eight for us to win, so no Judd and Fev kicks four and we win by around four and a half goals – I thought it was very pleasing,” Ratten said after his side outscored the Tigers seven goals to two in the final term to win by 30 points.

“I could [see it coming]. I think our last quarters have been outstanding for probably about the last month. We’ve given teams a head start and reeled them in or really closed the gap pretty quickly.

“I think the boys’ belief in themselves and their teammates to be able to run out games is just increasing every time we do it.”

The Blues had to think their way through a Richmond game plan based on getting numbers behind the ball and counter-attacking, according to the coach, who also lauded Stevens.

“We’ve seen Nick do that throughout the year, but with Chris out it really highlighted his impact on the game,” Ratten said.

“We’d send messages down and everything would get done. He’d just orchestrate it and organise players to get the situation that we needed. He was outstanding.”

Carlton had 10 goal-scorers in one of the more even displays of the season. Ratten said it was another important step in developing a truly multi-pronged attack.

“I think we’re always learning about the way that we play,” he said.

“The great thing I suppose is that we reduced the amount of ball that went to Brendan by a little bit, but I think it was great for the players’ confidence to be used a bit more and have that opportunity to score.”

The Blues’ seventh win of the season puts them back into top-eight contention, but Ratten said he had learned his lesson after dangling the prospect of playing finals in front of his players before a heavy loss to Essendon.

“I said it once and I’m not saying it [again],” he replied when asked about using the 'F' word.

“We need to work on the process of winning games, and winning two games in a row would be a fantastic start for us.

“We’ve got confidence in our ability to play some good footy, but I think we’ve seen some of the [bad] work that we can do as well, and that’s being up and down.

“We didn’t come to play last week at all in that first quarter, and I think that showed in the game, and the week before we beat Collingwood. We need to string wins together. That’s our next challenge: to get two or three wins together.”