CARLTON coach Mick Malthouse says Marc Murphy is the last player who would deliberately "infringe" against an opponent as his skipper faces a nervous wait over a collision with St Kilda skipper Nick Riewoldt on Monday night.

 

Murphy is likely to come under scrutiny from the Match Review Panel for a collision with Riewoldt early in the third quarter of the Blues' 32-point win at Etihad Stadium.

 

The incident occurred as Murphy ran towards Riewoldt to contest the ball and the Saint bent down to try and pick it up at the last minute.

 

With the Saint's head over the ball, Murphy appeared to try to avoid bumping Riewoldt, but caught him high with his arm and hip.

 

Riewoldt was off the field for almost 10 minutes while being tested for concussion, but returned and played out the match.

 

Malthouse told reporters after the game he had seen a replay of the incident, but would not prejudge how the MRP would view it.

 

"I see it like you see it, it's brief, it's gone. I didn't see it at the time, I was watching other things, but I did see it through the replay," Malthouse said.

 

"'Murph' would be the last bloke ever to want to infringe.

"I'm not going to prejudge it or not judge it right now because I really haven't seen enough of it to say exactly what took place."

 

The Blues' win over the Saints was their third in the past four rounds, but Malthouse said playing finals was the "last thing" his team should be thinking about it given its inconsistency during games.

 

Carlton dominated the first half against St Kilda and should have led by more than 39 points at half-time.

 

But Malthouse was concerned by the Blues' drop-off in the third term, when they were outscored 1.1 (7) to 2.7 (19), saying they had been fortunate the Saints had missed some "gettable" goals.

 

"It's not necessarily winning that makes it a good game, it's the efforts that put it through," Malthouse said.

 

"I just hope we can squeeze the consistency levels up and we didn't today.

 

"But we may have taken a bit more of a step. That's what we've got to do and find out why it drifts."