The boys all enjoyed a few days break away from the Club last week and we are now eager to prove ourselves against a good opponent in Carlton.

Given the team is playing this Thursday night, we returned to training on Saturday to ensure we still had the best preparation possible.

One of the most exciting things about this week’s match is that it is a standalone game which will be watched by a huge audience nationally.

We don’t often get the chance to play in such big games.

We had the opportunity back in Round 2 earlier this season against Carlton at home and had almost 37,000 people rock up to the Gabba that night.

Otherwise, I reckon the Club only gets one, or sometimes two, games per year when the entire footy world’s eyes are on us.

As Vossy said on Monday, the occasion is probably a good test for us to see exactly where we’re at.

Carlton, however, are no strangers to big games and will be keen to get back on the winners’ list themselves having lost their past two matches.

While we beat the Blues by a few goals up here earlier this season, one player that didn’t make the trip for them back then was their skipper Chris Judd.

Judd is a phenomenal player and I certainly don’t envy whoever gets the tough job of trying to shut him down.

There has been plenty of talk about the tactics used to combat some of the stars of the competition like Judd and Simon Black.

Blacky has dealt with his fair share of taggers over the years so could probably give you a bit more insight into them than I can.

Fremantle’s Adam McPhee came under some media scrutiny for his tagging job on the Blues Captain recently while last week St Kilda’s Steven Baker copped a lengthy ban from the AFL Tribunal for some of his 'close checking' on Geelong’s Steve Johnson.

Thankfully, there are rules in place - and plenty of umpires at each game - to ensure that there is no illegal treatment of players off the ball. But players will still push the boundaries and try everything within the rules to stop their opponent.

I guess it’s my job to try and help our midfield taggers out by giving our team first use of the ball from the ruck contests.