Carlton's effort against Adelaide must become the club's new benchmark in order to take a step forward, caretaker coach John Barker says.

The Blues started better against the Crows and pushed them late in the game, despite losing dual Brownlow medallist Chris Judd to a season-ending – and potentially career-ending – knee injury in the first quarter.

While Barker said he was pleased with the players' effort in his second game in charge, he wouldn't celebrate it until it became the norm.

"We fought it out, gave really strong effort, pressured," Barker said.

"What we want is that effort to be standard, though. We don't want to be praising that and making a massive deal of it because it hasn't been there.

"That effort needs to be the standard going forward and we shouldn't be applauding it too greatly because I think it needs to be the standard."

The Blues enter the bye with one win to their name and on the bottom of the ladder, with their next clash against Port Adelaide in round 12.

Barker said the bye would give his players a chance to work on the issues that let them down against the Crows.

"Our decision-making, our ball use, our composure," he said.

"They're the things that we really need to work on going forward because we had a lot of opportunities today that we just didn't quite get right."

Despite missing last week with calf tightness and appearing in doubt on Friday with a less-than-convincing training run, captain Marc Murphy was the Blues' best.

He was closely followed by young gun Patrick Cripps, who Barker said had hopefully suffered cramp in the game's final minutes and not a soft-tissue strain.

He said Murphy – who had 36 disposals, won six clearances and laid five tackles – put in a "captain's effort".

"He just willed himself into contests, willed himself to run back and defend, willed himself forward to give us an extra number at times," he said.

"He was enormous and we talk about what we want to stand for as a club and in terms of that pressure and what that effort looks like, well, he brought that in spades as well. He led from the front."

Ruckman Matthew Kreuzer played his first AFL game since round one last season after a string of foot-related issues.

His return has been carefully managed with three VFL hit-outs and frequent rotations on Saturday, with Cameron Wood handling the bulk of the ruck work against Sam Jacobs.

While Kreuzer didn't dominate, two second-half goals marked his comeback to the big stage and were celebrated strongly by his teammates.

"They're the little wins that we're looking for at the moment and he's one of them," Barker said.

"He's had a really tough time of it in the last couple of years.

"We made sure we were really careful with the way we brought him back in so that when he did get his opportunity out here he could make the most of it and he could help the team, and he did today.

"He just rips in and when he launches at the ball … You didn't need to watch to know that 'Kreuz' was coming near the ball because they [the fans] really got around him.

"He's a very good player and we're going to give him every opportunity to keep growing."