Carlton coach John Barker says his team have put their record defeat by Hawthorn behind them to focus on their AFL clash with the Kangaroos at Etihad Stadium on Saturday night.
An understrength Blues hit a new club low when thrashed by 138 points, which was their fourth successive loss.
But Barker said while it was a "reality check" about the lack of depth in Carlton's playing group it wasn't indicative of the progress they had made.
"We can take some comfort in that for probably seven of the past eight weeks we've been showing some really strong endeavour and playing some really good football," he said.
"We had a hell of a lot of inexperienced players out there and we were up against a machine of a football team so we know where we're at."
Barker has resisted flogging the Blues players at training and said building self-belief was just as important.
"There's a fine line between getting the baseball bat out and ensuring the players have got some good strong self-belief and can get out there and get a good job done tomorrow night," he said.
Carlton have won three of the last four clashes with North Melbourne, including a 23-point margin last season.
But with the Blues 16th with only three wins and the Kangaroos moving into the top eight for the first time this season on the back of their big win over Brisbane, the odds are against a fourth victory.
Barker said that key to beating the Blues was to nullify in-form ruckman Todd Goldstein.
"He's a very good player and has been one of their shining lights and drivers over the last month especially.
"Cam Wood comes into the team and hopefully he and Matthew Kreuzer can nullify him as well as possible."
The match is Jarrad Waite's 200th game and will be his first match against his former teammate since joining the Kangaroos.
In the corresponding game last season he booted four goals for Carlton but Barker wasn't hoping for a repeat performance.
"We'd like to wish him all the best but not at the sake of our team's performance," he said.
Meanwhile Barker wouldn't be drawn into Richmond's reported interest in Chris Yarran: "I'm an interim coach so I don't want to talk about hypotheticals."
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