It was the most painful hit he had taken but North Melbourne defender Daniel Pratt said it won't shake his confidence this season.

Pratt was on the receiving end of a rampaging Carlton forward Brendan Fevola during an AFL NAB Cup match last month and hospitalised with severe rib bruising.

The 25-year-old is known for putting his body on the line but this time it was shaken badly.

"I wasn't too concerned about what was actually happening, I was more worried about the pain at the time," Pratt said on Wednesday about the knee in the ribs.

"It was probably the worst pain I've had. I was pretty fortunate at the end of the day, it was just lucky it was on the muscle and not anywhere else."

But he is philosophical about the collision, convinced it is just part of football and won't have him looking over his shoulder from now on.

"No I don't think so. In the future I won't be thinking if someone's coming like that or not.

"There's not too many blokes around at the minute who can cause that sort of damage," he said.

"Fev tells me every time we play that he's going to try to run over me.

"It finally happened but that's just part of the game, it's my role and it's his role to make sure blokes don't get in his way.

His role is to take marks and kick goals so I got in his way and he ran into me."

But Pratt said Fevola had contacted him the next day to check how badly hurt he was.

"He gave me a call the next day to see how I was going and he told me that he was 105 kilos and I was pretty unfortunate - that's the heaviest he's been.

"But it was good to get a call from him, he was genuinely concerned," he said.

Pratt said he had wanted to play in the practice match against Fremantle in Canberra last weekend but club doctors had overruled him.

"I'm coming along not too badly, I'm probably another week away - I'll miss this week (against Port Adelaide) - I'm still pretty sore," he said.

"I'll play next week against either Hawthorn or Collingwood and I won't be far off then and then it will be straight back into round one."

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