Carlton say they can still find their AFL finals rhythm without their banned leader.

Skipper Chris Judd’s chicken-wing tackle suspension and the noise surrounding it initially masked, but now magnify the problems facing the Blues.

They sit outside the top eight, face the next four weeks without their most influential player, and have a tough run home just to make the finals – let along the top-four spot they publicly earmarked at the start of 2012.

But Carlton coach Brett Ratten believes the promising return of star onballer Marc Murphy last week from a fractured shoulder will help counter Judd’s absence until round 21.

And he is hoping others will seize the opportunity and fill the Judd-sized hole left in the Blues’ midfield.

“We say ‘Murph, you’ve had a week under your belt. Now you go and replace the skipper’,” Ratten said.

“We have depth there, but some of those players haven’t been able to maintain it for more than three weeks at senior level, then it falls away.

“This will be a great four weeks for them to get their teeth in because there may be a few players who don’t come up as well.”

Utility Aaron Joseph, cleaned up by North Melbourne’s Jack Ziebell in the high hit which led to the Kangaroo being rubbed out for four weeks at the tribunal, is still undergoing concussion tests to determine whether he will be available for selection.

And out-of-form small forward Jeff Garlett is squarely in the selection gun according to Ratten.

But regardless of the Blues’ eventual finals fate, Ratten is convinced the club will learn much from their trials in 2012.

“It’s one of those seasons. It’s a bit like snakes and ladders – we come up the ladder and we come back down because of circumstances,” he said.

“It’s one of those seasons. It hasn’t gone great for us in a lot of areas of the game.

“I know we’ll be a lot better for it going forward in some of the things that we do, how we manage the players, and even from the lesson that we got with that tackle from Chris.”