THE SCRUTINY and profile of the Friday night stage will give Carlton the perfect opportunity to put its season back on track.

Assistant coach Matthew Lappin said the Blues would look to bounce back from their 44-point loss to Adelaide with a win over West Coast.

"The best thing about this week has been that it's a six-day turnaround so we had to get over the Adelaide result very quickly, learn from it and then start focusing on West Coast really quickly," he said from Visy Park on Thursday afternoon.

"It's crunch time in the season for a lot of clubs. What's happening at the top of the ladder is that two clubs are belting or beating everybody, so we need to make sure that we're hanging on there. We've got to get some momentum.

"We're a bit up and down and we're looking to fix that starting this week.

"It's a really good test. Both sides need this win and we need to bounce back from what was a pretty ordinary game for us last week."

Lappin was certain the players were well aware of the importance of the match following an effort that saw the club drop out of the eight with four wins and five losses.

Despite a disturbing run of form that has seen the Blues win just two of their last seven games, Lappin maintained it had been business as usual this week. 

"There are certainly no alarm bells," he said.

"We're one of the two or three youngest sides in the league and we're aware of that. When results are going the way they're going you just continue to work on your education of our younger players and putting games into them.

"The expectations outside our footy club have been pretty high, but we know where we're at inside the group. We're working to improve our players week by week so hopefully we get a chance to play finals footy at the end of the year."

Forward Brad Fisher will play his first game of the season and Lappin said his approach had been admirable after a pre-season campaign ruined by injury.

Fisher was VFL affiliate Northern Bullants' best player last weekend.

"His spirit around the club has been really good," Lappin said.

"He had a really bad injury in the pre-season where he dislocated his elbow really badly and it was an eight to 10-week injury. You get that at the start or the middle of your pre-season and it really sets you back as a marking player [because] you've got to get a lot of strength back in that arm. He's been working really hard at the lower levels.

"With Simon Wiggins not coming up this week that gives us the opportunity to bring Brad back in to play the role that he likes in the forward line."