The next generation of Blues will officially arrive on Thursday night.<\/p>\n
Carlton will debut exciting youngsters Jagga Smith and Harry Dean, while there\u2019s \u201cnothing to suggest\u201d defender Jacob Weitering won\u2019t line up against Sydney.<\/p>\n
Coach Michael Voss wouldn\u2019t confirm Wade Derksen, Will Hayward, Ben Ainsworth and Ollie Florent as certain starters, but they all took to the training track on Tuesday morning.<\/p>\n
Smith became one of the Blues\u2019 pre-season highlights after dominating against Geelong a week ago.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile Dean, according to Voss, will begin his \u201cvery long partnership\u201d with Weitering on Carlton\u2019s last line of defence.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe do have a few debutants, it might surprise you the first one: Jagga actually got a game,\u201d Voss said with a smile.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe can confirm that one and the other one is Harry himself, two both great stories, obviously a father and son joining us and high draft pick.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s really impressed so far in the exposure we\u2019ve had with him and he\u2019s going to draw a very long partnership with Weiters down there I am sure.<\/p>\n
\u201cObviously Jagga, most people have seen him over the last couple of weeks and the impact he can have on games and probably how valuable he\u2019ll be to us in the short term and long term.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve been watching that \u2026 he finally gets his first game, he\u2019s a pretty excited man.\u201d<\/p>\n
Weitering sustained a fractured rib playing State of Origin last month and has been racing against the clock to be fit take on his former teammate Charlie Curnow.<\/p>\n
The reliable defender has been through contact training but needs to get through an important Tuesday session to be selected.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve been stepping up his progression over the last two training sessions, so it\u2019s just been a steady introduction of (full contact),\u201d Voss said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is probably the one where it becomes uncontrolled versus being controlled. We\u2019ll wait and see \u2013 like I said, it\u2019s all leaning towards the positive.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s nothing to suggest its not going to go where he (isn\u2019t) playing \u2026 but you\u2019ve still got to make sure he gets through this particular training session.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Blues \u2013 through Smith and a rejuvenated Sam Walsh \u2013 moved the ball at speed in their tune-ups.<\/p>\n
Voss says the evolved ball movement is trending correctly but expects a slew of mistakes in the first quarter on Thursday.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey are certainly moving the needle in the right direction (and) finding those moments where to be really dynamic,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThen also just knowing those times when to be composed. I would imagine this game in the first 30 minutes is going to be very fast.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe mistakes would be quite high, I would imagine quite early, so how we settle into that is going to be very important.<\/p>\n
\u201cUltimately now we want to see the transfer, have a more balanced game model. Everyone has got to be good at one thing, so we hope we bring that to the table but also have enough in the other phases of the game where we can do some damage.\u201d<\/p>\n