COLLINGWOOD has started the season in ominous form, but Carlton coach Brett Ratten is confident his team is ready to pass the game's ultimate test in a top-of-the-table clash on Friday night.

The Blues will be boosted by the return from suspension of full-back Michael Jamison and Ratten said it was the perfect opportunity to gauge just how far his team has been able to progress since last season.

"From our players' point of view, this is the ultimate challenge and it's one they're looking forward to," Ratten said from the annual Peter Mac Cup breakfast in Melbourne on Wednesday morning.

"I think it will be a real test. Collingwood lost to Hawthorn [in round 22], but I think if you wind the clock back, it was May that they lost their last game of football.

"It's been a long time since they've lost so for our group it will be a great time to challenge ourselves and the things that we've worked on over Christmas and the pre-season period.

"We've had two weeks and we've met some challenges that we've been tested on but this is the ultimate test in footy at the moment."

Ratten will be forced to change a side coming off a 119-point victory to accommodate Jamison, but first-round draft pick Matthew Watson appears set to keep his spot in defence after a promising debut against Gold Coast last week.

Fellow key defender Paul Bower is winning his battle against an ankle injury, but is set to return via the VFL this weekend.

Jamison missed the first two games of the season after being suspended for a high bump on Adelaide's Ricky Henderson, but the Blues were able to effectively cover his absence against Richmond and the Suns.

With Chris Dawes and Travis Cloke to contend with on Friday, Ratten is delighted to have his first-choice key defender back in the fold.

Jamison has long been highly regarded at Visy Park, but Ratten backed the former rookie to raise his standing outside the club this season.

"For him I think this is the next stage and that he'll elevate his position in the competition," he said.

"We really rate him highly and can't wait to get him back in.

"He's in our leadership and what he does for our back six is really organise it. This was his first full pre-season in probably four or five years. He hasn't missed a beat, he's put on around four or five kilos so he looks bigger as well and he's got a lot of confidence out of the pre-season period."

On the face of it, the fledgling Suns didn't appear to offer the Blues the ideal preparation to face the reigning premier. But Ratten disagreed, saying he had seen encouraging evidence of the uncompromising approach that was a focus of the club's pre-season.

"There's no doubt we got off to a great start last week, but we were challenging the group every quarter about not taking their foot off the pedal," he said.

"That's something that we probably haven't done in previous years … we've had some good wins, but we've fallen away in some of our games.

"I think we haven't pushed it to the nth degree and we want to make sure we maintain that as a group through 2011. I think it's a great challenge for us to make sure that we are a little bit more ruthless."

Michael Jamison is a $170,100 defender in the Toyota AFL Dream Team competition.