Impressive Carlton youngster Mitch Robinson will miss the rest of the AFL season with a foot injury.

The midfielder will not play again this year after succumbing to a stress fracture, coach Brett Ratten confirmed on Wednesday.

"Mitch is going to be out for the season, he's got a stress fracture of his foot which is disappointing for him and for us," Ratten said.

"He's been a livewire and for a player to come in and have the impact I think physically to match it straight up in your first year, I think he's done an amazing job.

"Not great news, but that's footy sometimes."

Ex-Fremantle ruckman Robert Warnock is making progress from the foot stress fracture he sustained in the pre-season, but he is unlikely to play his first game for the Blues against Melbourne this week.

Warnock is likely to continue building his fitness in the VFL after finally overcoming the injury.

"He's getting closer," Ratten said. "I suppose we just want to make sure he's 100 per cent to come into the team if he does come into the team.

"We'll sit down and have a look at him train today. I'd probably say I'd be leaning to not play (him) than play at the moment."

But even if Warnock fails to play in either of the last two home-and-away games he could still be in line for a finals berth, Ratten said.

"No, that doesn't rule him out," he said.

"It probably makes it a little bit more of a gamble but I think with his engine size he's very big anyway so just to get him to play footy, that's what we want to do."

Warnock has been wearing a GPS tracking device so the club can monitor how much running he is doing and how fast he is.

"His numbers are good, his sprint efforts are getting close to AFL standard compared to (fellow ruckmen Matthew) Kreuzer and (Shaun) Hampson.

"He's not too far off. If he comes into an AFL game, his game time might be limited so maybe we might be better to play him at 70-75 per cent at the (VFL side) Bullants compared to maybe 45-55 per cent at AFL level."

Ratten did hint, however, that Warnock might find it difficult to displace Kreuzer and Hampson.

"I think the balance of our team is fairly good at the moment.

"That's saying that this week but we'll just have a look at who the opponents are and what we have to do," Ratten said.

With the Blues in the finals for the first time in eight years, Ratten said the team was optimistic but refused to predict what sort of damage they could do in September.

"I think there's been an upbeat feeling around the place but I think you get that through winning games of football.

"But I'm pretty quick to point out that when you put your head up in this game it gets knocked off pretty quickly."

However he said the side's gritty wins had proved useful ahead of the finals.

"I think it gives us a little bit of belief with our ability to run out games - I think that's helped us a fair bit with that.

"We have matured as a team."

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