Carlton's Anthony Koutoufides was a shining light as the Blues won a lacklustre AFL practice match over Port Adelaide 14.15 (99) to 13.14 (92) at AAMI Stadium.

In a heartening showing for Blues supporters, Koutoufides, who missed almost all of last season with knee injuries, played all four quarters and gathered plenty of the ball to be close to best afield.

He started the match up forward, kicking Carlton's first goal of the match, and also spent time in defence and in the centre square, where he also had a major impact.

Carlton coach Denis Pagan was delighted with the spirit showed by his team in the final quarter.

"I was just rapt with the way when Port Adelaide got in front our boys really fought it out and then turned the tables and kicked a couple goals ourselves and put it beyond doubt, it was a pretty special effort," Pagan said.

"It wasn't so much how well they played, it was the desire, the intent, they didn't want to get beaten."

Port coach Mark Williams said he was not too bothered by his team's failure to win a pre-season match.

"It is a concern, but it's something that doesn't actually mean too much ... we played pretty well, not as well as we hoped, but it was pretty sound," he said.

"We took a few players off, it's a practice game ... we were still trying things, they were running different players with ours and we were trying things with some of our players to give them different tests.

"We feel like our young players learnt a lot and got some really valuable game time."

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