Carlton will be looking to bounce back hard when it takes on North Melbourne this Saturday night.
The Blues head back to Etihad Stadium, seven days after their disappointing loss to the reigning premier Hawthorn.
In contrast, North Melbourne celebrated Brent Harvey’s 400th AFL game in style, thrashing Brisbane at the Gabba by 72 points, which moved it into the top eight.
In recent years Carlton has held a good record over the Kangaroos, winning three of the past four encounters by an average of two goals.
The last time these two sides met – Round 18, 2014 – Blues forward Lachie Henderson kicked a career-high six goals in his 100th AFL game, while North Melbourne captain Andrew Swallow racked up 25 disposals. Henderson will achieve another ton on Saturday when he plays his 100th game for Carlton.
In the lead up to Saturday’s match, Carlton defender Sam Docherty said the young Blues are still trying to develop their own “brand of footy” and want to put last week’s 138-point loss behind them.
“As a group we’ve just got to stay positive and try to keep on the same track that we were going,” he said.
“We’ve still got a hell of a lot of room to improve but we just need to keep moving forward as a group and keep sticking at the same stuff we’ve been going at.”
Carlton’s ruck duo of Cam Wood and Matthew Kreuzer will need to be at their best on Saturday night, with North Melbourne ranked third in the competition for hitouts thanks to Roos big man Told Goldstein. Goldstein is ranked number one in the league for hitouts with an average of 45 per game.
Carlton coach John Barker praised the Roos ruckman on Friday morning saying he’s been a “shining light” for North in the past month, but Barker is hopeful his ruckmen can minimise Goldstein’s impact.
“Wood comes into the team and hopefully their (Wood and Kreuzer) combination can nullify him as well as possible,” Barker said.
Speaking during the week, North Melbourne coach Brad Scott said he’s not looking too much into Carlton’s loss last week, saying it was more a reflection of Hawthorn’s dominance and good form.
“We’ve looked a lot more closely at their (Carlton’s) previous month – they have been very competitive and they have got a lot of class on paper,” he said.
“We’re under no illusions in this competition that anything gets handed to you on a silver platter, you’ve got to work for it and this week will be no different.”
Former Carlton forward Jarrad Waite will play his 200th AFL match this weekend. After 13 years and 184 games for Carlton, Waite headed to Arden Street at the end of last season as an unrestricted free agent.
The young Blues lineup will be injected with experience as veteran defender Andrew Carrazzo, ruckman Cam Wood and Troy Menzel return to the side, while the Roos will go in with an unchanged lineup.
Carlton takes on North Melbourne at Etihad Stadium on Saturday night with the match kicking off at 7.20pm AEST.
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