Carlton captain Chris Judd expects his emerging side to get a taste of finals type football when they tackle a Sydney side embarrassed by their "soft" performance last weekend.

The Blues meet Sydney in the first ever Saturday afternoon AFL game at the SCG involving the Swans.

"I've only played at the SCG once in my career and I'm led to believe that Carlton hasn't won in Sydney since 1993," Judd said.

"Carlton at the minute is full of these statistics which we really need to break to form that winning culture.

"They are one of the best one-on-one sides to have played in the modern era and we're really looking forward to testing ourselves against the Swans."

While other teams have profited from duplicating Sydney's brand of hard-nosed one-on-one footy, Judd was adamant the Swans were still among the leaders in that area.

"They were good enough to beat Hawthorn a couple of weeks ago and they are the reigning premiers," said the champion midfielder.

"Sydney still sits very high up in our estimates and it's a great challenge for us and particularly our younger players who maybe haven't played in the style of game which Sydney forces you to play in.

"I think there's about 30 more stoppages a game, it's always pretty congested around the footy and playing at a small ground like the SCG exposes our players to a different style of footy and it's often a messy style of footy which you come up against in finals."

Judd said the Blues needed to work on a number of basics following their loss to Essendon with defensive pressure and tackling among the areas identified.

He wasn't concerned by the uncharacteristically wayward goal kicking performance from Carlton spearhead Brendan Fevola and doubted whether it was due to any lingering injury problems.

"It's nothing to worry about because we all know how good a kicker he is, so I'm sure that will be rectified this week," Judd said.

"Certainly his kicking in the first two games was pretty solid."

Judd said he wasn't sure whether the hype surrounding the Blues had affected the group last weekend, but said the loss to Essendon was a good reminder of where the club stood.

Sydney midfielder Jarrad McVeigh emphasised the Swans were determined to produce one of their characteristically gritty efforts after being out-hussled by Brisbane last weekend.

"We were embarrassed with our performance and we want to stick to our trademark as a footy club. That's hard, contested footy, we were soft on the weekend," McVeigh said.

"The guys are having a good, hard look at ourselves this week, which starts today at training and we'll be ready to go this weekend.

"We will be looking to really get a stranglehold on the midfield this week.

"With (Marc) Murphy, (Heath) Scotland, Juddy, (Nick) Stevens and (Bryce) Gibbs, they have some quality players there and we will be coming down on them hard."

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