AFL FANS starved of football were offered some hope at Visy Park on Friday morning with the highly competitive training session put on by Carlton a sure sign that the season is just around the corner.

For nearly two and a half hours Brett Ratten instructed, encouraged and admonished his players through a series of full-contact competitive drills that left the coach satisfied at the end of the first week of training after the Christmas break.

"It was a good session. It was good to get the bulk of the group together and have a really competitive hitout," he said.

"You would expect to see a few skill errors when you start getting into combative drills like that, but I was happy with the skill level, especially by foot."

Despite wearing an arm brace reminiscent of Arnold Schwarzenegger's Terminator, Brad Fisher took part in the entire session and appears well on the comeback trail after dislocating his elbow before Christmas.

Brendan Fevola was confined to the rehabilitation group, but it was clearly just part of the club's cautious approach with the big spearhead, as he was heard to remark, "I wanted to train but they wouldn't let me."

Fevola was in high spirits as he took part in handball drills with Robert Warnock (foot), Adam Hartlett (knee), Heath Scotland (hip), Adam Bentick (hip) and Dennis Armfield (foot) away from the main group.

Complaining at never having handballed so much in his life, Fev challenged those that could kick to a quick target practice contest, which he duly won before declaring his day complete and leaving the ground with fist raised in triumph 40 minutes into the session.

His teammates were not so lucky, with a series of handball and kicking drills giving way to first, half-oval, and then full-length match simulations in the bright morning sun.

With Ratten barking instructions from the middle of the ground the intensity lifted noticeably in the last hour.

Defender Paul Bower, whose family watched the session after flying in from Perth to help him celebrate his 21st birthday, agreed it had been a searching morning.

"Those drills were pretty lively," Bower said.

"We were working on some quick ball movement out of defence and we're trying a bit of a different zone set-up for defending kick-ins as well, so it helped the forwards and the defenders.

"We're only about three weeks away from playing scratch matches within the group and the NAB Cup will be right after that. It's been a long pre-season, but when you think about it there's not too long to go now.

"We've still got a bit more hard work to do in terms of running and training like that, but there's not long to go now."

Some players were slow to get up from a few particularly fierce contests, but Bower maintained that was all part of building towards the home and away season.

"You don't want to hurt anybody, but you've still got to be hard at it," he said.

"Even though they're you're teammates we're all fighting each other for spots in the end.

"You have to go as hard as you can without being silly. You want to win the ball and you want to beat your opponent. I think it's good that we can apply that sort of pressure to each other. It's only going to help."