SCORING more and building a connection: it’s a constant theme which has marked Carlton’s pre-season to date.

Cameron Bruce echoed those sentiments on Wednesday, with the assistant coach sharing an insight into the forward line in the lead-up to the season.

With less than a month to go before Carlton’s first practice match against Collingwood, Bruce said there had been a considerable focus on the attacking side of the game.

Echoing the sentiments of David Teague, Kade Simpson and a number of others, Bruce said the ability to produce a winning score was key for the Blues.

“We’ve obviously got some new inclusions down there and we’re building some great synergy. We’re building that connection to allow us to score big every game,” Bruce told Carlton Media.

“We want to continue building our skills: we’ve introduce more kicking into training, more decision-making. We’re trying to get more flow in the ball.

“Hopefully that allows us to be more potent in offence and get the ball inside 50 more.”

While Carlton have been missing the influence of Harry McKay (who is nearing a return to training) and Charlie Curnow, Bruce said one key forward in particular was leading from the front.

After a year of resurgence in 2019, Bruce said Levi Casboult - who featured just about everywhere last season in Navy Blue - was setting the standard for his younger teammates.

“Levi has been outstanding. He’s so resilient,” he said.

“He’s out there training in every session, crashing bodies and finish his work off really well. He’s setting the example in terms of the way we want to compete.

“We’re also getting some good hits and some good development from our younger forward. Matty Owies is one who is building his craft — he’s benefitting from Eddie Betts being here.”

Forecast by midfield counterpart Brent Stanton last week, Bruce said that a number of Carlton midfielder were also expected to have an impact in attack this year.

While stressing that the coaching staff “don’t want to be spinning the wheels too often”, he was hoping that the developing midfield group would have a direct impact on the scoreboard.

“We want to have really good flexibility within our playing group,” he said.

“Zac Fisher, Will Setterfield, Sam Walsh will come down, Marc Murphy, Ed Curnow — they’ll all spend time in the forward line, Michael Gibbons as well.

“We want players to have little hits either in the forward line or midfield. We want them to be building their forward line craft but predominantly we’ll have a set four or five forwards that are building a really good connection.”

For Bruce's full comments, watch the video above.