ENCOURAGED by the Blues’ attack on the reigning premiers last Thursday, Matthew Wright says he was buoyed by the team's fast start.

Despite the loss, Carlton wasn't overawed by a "finals-like" build-up according to Wright, kicking the first five goals of the contest.

The Blues' final score of 15.5 (95) was the highest of any side against Richmond at the MCG in over a year, with Wright (five goals) and Charlie Curnow (five goals) the key beneficiaries of quick ball movement.

“The positives are probably the five goals to zip head-start that we got. We started the game pretty well last year but probably struggled a little with our first quarters,” Wright said. 

“I thought we probably played three solid quarters of footy.

“Over the summer we’ve been working on offence a lot. We’ve added a bit of flair and I think we’re (starting to) look dangerous going forward.”

The Blues will look to regain their steely defensive set-up in Round 2 after conceding six goals in a disappointing final term against the Tigers.

“The last couple of years we’ve been really focusing on our defence and that’s got to remain, we’ve got to keep that at a really high standard,” Wright said. 

“We’ll learn from the latter half of the last quarter where they got on top of us but I think going forward we should be really confident.”

Looking forward to the Blues’ next challenge, Gold Coast will present a difficult task this week after a hard-fought win against North Melbourne in torrential rain in Cairns.

“They [Gold Coast] were tackling all day and their pressure around the ball was fantastic. It’s going to be another challenge this week and we're looking forward to playing them," Wright said.

The Blues return to Etihad Stadium this weekend for their first home game of the season, taking on the Suns at 1:45pm on Saturday afternoon.