Carlton AFL coach Brett Ratten would love to see Daniel Kerr at Princes Park but is yet to be convinced the star on-baller would leave West Coast.

Kerr is contracted to the Eagles for 2009 but has been consistently linked to the Blues to rejoin former team-mate and good friend Chris Judd.

While the All-Australian has repeatedly denied any intention of leaving the Eagles, his management has reportedly held informal talks with up to six Victorian clubs, including Carlton.

"Daniel's in contract and everyone seems to be pointing the bone at us with Daniel," Ratten said.

"I think he's a fantastic player, he's 25 years of age, but he is contracted to the West Coast Eagles. I dare say he'll probably finish his career at West Coast.

"But I do like watching Daniel play, so if West Coast said he was available we'd sit down and have a look, see what they wanted and we'd go from there if we could do the deal."

The Blues would be hard pressed to make a trade with the Eagles as they would have to relinquish a high-calibre player and a top-end draft pick or two first-round draft picks.

But Ratten confirmed the club had enough room in their salary cap to chase a marquee player from another club.

"We've got an idea of our deficiencies and a pretty good idea of where we need to improve, so we'd be pretty open to whatever was put on the table," he said.

Chief among the Blues targets will be an experienced ruckman and key position player.

Ratten acknowledged the team needed another key forward to help spearhead Brendan Fevola and said out-of-favour Melbourne ruckman Jeff White might be considered to help fast-track the development of young giants Matthew Kreuzer and Shaun Hampson.

"We've got Hampson and Kreuzer that are going to grow into men but we need to be mindful that we can't ask boys to do a man's job, week in week out," Ratten said.

Carlton's finals hopes were dashed after last Sunday's 51-point loss to North Melbourne.

But Ratten urged his team to finish off the year strongly to create confidence for next season.

"We could really let ourselves down if we think, `That's it, cue in the rack, oh well, we've done a pretty good job and be happy.' Well, no," Ratten said.

"This competition goes for 22 weeks and the standards we set will have a big imprint on 2009."

Meanwhile, Carlton's Irish big man Setanta O'hAilpin will travel to Germany next week for further medical treatment on his injured calf.

O'hAilpin has not played since round 15 and will seek help from German doctor Hans-Wilhelm Muller-Wohlfahrt, whose previous patients include Geelong's Max Rooke and Richmond's Mark Coughlan.

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