BRETT Ratten changed things up a bit at Carlton training on Friday with the club's co-tenants at Visy Park, rugby league's Melbourne Storm, joining his squad for a combined session.

The ground was awash in a sea of Storm purple and old dark navy blue as the squads took part in a series of drills combining skills from both codes during the 90-minute hit-out.

"It's good at this time of the year after we've been training hard for three or four months to break it up with a session like that," captain Chris Judd said.

"I think Andrew Walker has got another career after football if he wants it and puts on another 40kg or so and Cooper Cronk from the Storm was pretty good on the defensive pressure."

But while the air was filled with laughter and good-natured banter, Judd maintained the session was more than just a bit of fun.

"It's funny, a lot of sports now are starting to take things from other sports," he said.

"Look at Hawthorn play with a zone defence from soccer. Covering the space and not the man was the big thing they introduced. Look at the effectiveness that Luke Hodge had in that finals series where he was really covering an area and not a player. That probably really changed the way teams look at defending the opposition.

"There's a lot of relevant things we can take out of their sport and they can take out of ours."

The obvious transferrable skill is tackling with the Blues having previously done some work with the Storm's coaching staff in that area.

Judd agreed that tackling across the competition had improved in recent years as clubs worked to refine their overall skill set.

"I think that Collingwood-Geelong game was really when everyone became aware of how important it can be," he said, referring to last year's round-nine clash.

"Collingwood came out with a real focus to pressure Geelong and were the first team to beat them for a season-and-a-half.

"Like most things the journey is from gross to subtle if you like; you get the big things right first and after that you start looking at the more subtle things.

"That's probably where the AFL's at now and tackling is a more subtle skill which has really become more and more important."