CARLTON coach Brett Ratten concedes his side's finals push ended with last week's disappointing loss to North Melbourne, but he has demanded a strong finish to the season from his players.

The Blues have improved both collectively and as individuals in Ratten's first full year in charge, but he felt the attitude taken into games against the Brisbane Lions and Hawthorn could have a large bearing on next season's campaign.

"We could really let ourselves down if we think that's it, the cue's in the rack and we've done a pretty good job and be happy with that," Ratten said on Wednesday, adding he would back moving the round 22 clash against the Hawks from Telstra Dome to the MCG.

"No, this competition goes for 22 weeks and the standards that we set will have a big imprint on 2009. You never want to leave a season, whether you've played finals or not, with a sour taste in your mouth and hopefully we don't.

"I've seen it at our club before where we've finished seasons off really well and that's translated into the following season and that's really helped the belief over that pre-season.

"In the pre-season you talk about things and you sort of go back towards the latter part of the season and reflect – if you didn't play finals – on how that went and if it finished poorly that can be the seed that's left inside your head and it can be a little difficult to overcome."

Chris Judd has trained well this week after copping a couple of heavy knocks to the head and the coach gave him a clean bill of health ahead of Saturday night's match.

"He's not too bad. We sort of had a bit of a joke that he's just come out of the boxing ring at the Olympics, but he just copped a couple and we were mindful of that head clash he had earlier in the year," he said.

"We took him off assessed him for a minute and he said that he was fine."

The skipper has worn a few heavy bumps in his debut season for the Blues and Ratten admitted his side has to get better at helping the gifted midfielder get clear of traffic.

"I think we saw first-hand how the Kangaroos really supported Brent Harvey and screened and blocked and assisted him to just grab that two metre break away. With his pace and footy nous he's pretty hard to stop," he said.

"We need to address that as a group going forward whether that's Judd or Stevens or Murphy to, if we can, allow our teammates to get that space and then get the ball into their hands."

Brendan Fevola is edging closer to 100 goals and Ratten said he would be delighted if he reached the mark, but again said that would not be the team's focus in Brisbane.

"If we go down that path I wonder what the opposition will think," he said.

"They might play 17 players on Brendan and play a full-forward up the other end because we'd be going to him all the time."