West Coast are set to give their young guns the daunting task of stopping Carlton juggernaut Chris Judd in Sunday's AFL clash at Etihad Stadium.

Eagles midfield coach Scott Burns wants to fast-track the development of 19-year-old Tom Swift by giving him the tagging job on Judd, who has been in scintillating form this season and is second favourite to win the Brownlow Medal.

Patrick McGinnity is also in line to run with the former West Coast skipper after successfully nullifying him during a pre-season game earlier this year.

"He (Judd) is probably the best midfielder to have gone around in the last 10 years and I think it would be great for Swifty to have a run on him for a little while," Burns said on the Eagles website.

But Burns conceded Judd was just one of the Eagles' worries.

"Then you've got No.1 draft picks in Marc Murphy and Bryce Gibbs, who are probably two to three years ahead of our young guys, and hardened players like Heath Scotland, Kade Simpson and Andrew Carrazzo," he said.

"Physically you've got to be careful pitting young players up against these guys, but you'd love to give them some time in the middle against senior players like that."

Worsfold said Judd, who played 134 games for the Eagles before defecting to Carlton at the end of 2007, was now just a normal opponent.

"He wasn't normal when he was here, he was a superstar. Now he's normal," Worsfold joked.

The Eagles will go into the game with the same forward line that struggled for fluency against the Saints last week.

Mark LeCras, Josh Kennedy and Quinten Lynch combined for just one goal, with Ben McKinley's four goals providing the only resistance.

But even McKinley came under fire after spraying a sitter from just 15m out in the final term, a miss that proved costly as St Kilda ran away with the game.

McKinley also missed crucial goals against Fremantle and Hawthorn but Worsfold defended the 23-year-old.

"He doesn't need anything extra or new (in his goalkicking action)," Worsfold said.

"It's pretty hard for him to do too much more than what he does.

"I'm sure it will turn for him.

"He needs to kick the goals we expect him to kick, as do all our players.

"We were pleased with the way he went about his game on the weekend and obviously we would have liked him to kick his easiest goal for the game ... but he created a lot of other opportunities."

The Blues have been bolstered by the return of Richard Hadley, Brock McLean, Andrew Walker and Steven Browne but Dennis Armfield (quad), Simon White (knee), Chris Yarran (quad) and Chris Johnson (wrist) were forced out.

The Eagles recalled Mark Nicoski in place of Ashton Hams, who was forced back to the rookie list due to Tim Houlihan's recovery from injury.

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