Carlton coach Brett Ratten is crossing his fingers that his return from Friday’s AFL match in Perth against Fremantle will give him enough time to attend the birth of his third child.

Ratten’s wife Jo is due to give birth on Saturday in Melbourne.

“It’s fine. I’ll catch the red-eye (flight) with the team on Wednesday and head home Saturday,” Ratten told a news conference.

“The baby’s due on Saturday so we expect the baby to adhere to protocol.

“Let’s wait and see what happens.

“She (Jo) is fine. She was late eight days last time.”

Ratten is juggling selection concerns for the fourth-placed Blues (3-1) who are coming off their first loss of the season and face the sixth-placed Dockers (3-1), who scored a confidence-boosting win at Etihad Stadium against St Kilda last week.

Ratten said on Tuesday he was buoyed by the return of last year’s club-leading goalkicker Andrew Walker, who has recovered from a quadricep injury to play his first AFL game of the season.

“He’ll come straight back in (without playing in the VFL),” Ratten said.

“I’m glad he’s back because he has bothered me.

“He’s in my office, sending me text messages, ‘I’m ready to go, pick me’.

“He’s ready to fire and play well.

“I wouldn’t like to be playing on him because they’re going to be do a few kilometres because he’s ready to be let off the leash.”

The loss of midfield tagger Andrew Carrazzo, who’s out for two months with a fractured shoulder, means Ratten is considering promoting Aaron Joseph.

Dennis Armfield (knee) will return to the side while Chris Yarran (toe), Ed Curnow (ankle) and Jeremy Laidler (knee) are only 50-50 chances to play this week following a bruising loss to Essendon.

Ratten said the Blues failed to match the Bombers’ physicality and he had challenged his men to rise to the challenge on Friday.

“Most of our battles in the first few weeks have been two teams going head to head and if there’s a push, there’s a shove going back the other way,” Ratten said.

“I didn’t see much resistance from us coming back in their face. It will be on again physically.”