Nine Blues' players hit the scoreboard in the 56-point win over Richmond, but next week's opponent, the Brisbane Lions, promise to provide a sterner test.
"It is only one game that we've had the success with that so the challenge now is to back that up," Ratten said.
"Today we had that nice spread of three blokes getting three goals which is fantastic for us. I think it just makes us a little bit more unpredictable."
The youthful Tigers were unable to match Carlton's efficiency at the stoppages for much of the contest even with prolific ball winner Chris Judd sitting in the stands.
"Today they were fairly switched on. Right at the start of the game we needed to put our mark on the game and I thought Brock McLean and Andrew Carrazzo really got around the footy and did a great job," Ratten said.
"It was a great start for us as a team and now the challenge for us with Chris still out of the team is to back that performance up.
"I thought our communication … was fantastic and maybe that's part of leadership that's grown within the team over the summer period. They're taking responsibility and accountability and I thought it was a really big tick considering too that Chris didn't play."
Ratten was delighted that McLean was able to answer critics of his pre-season form with an influential 26-possession performance.
"People can criticise people but with training loads they don't know exactly where players are in the system," he said.
"Sometimes if you're out of the NAB Cup series … we sort of ramp up the training loads a bit different to if we had stayed in the competition. He probably copped a bit of criticism and it was good for him to come out have a really solid performance today."
The Blues must now prepare for a showdown against former favourite son Brendan Fevola. He won't be the focus, however, with Ratten more intent on putting into practice the lessons learned from last year's last-gasp elimination final loss at the hands of the Lions.
"Sometimes your biggest negatives that you have in life or in games of football as a coach can be your greatest teaching tools," he said.
"Maybe that was something that we needed as a group to look at. We played a very offensive brand of football and we had to change and really work a lot harder at the momentum of games.
"It's been a reference point for us to go back to over the summer period. I think it was a great learning curve for us as a team and I think we saw tonight that we didn't play fast footy all the time and we got the balance right."
