Co-captain Jarrad McVeigh is looking forward to another Friday night blockbuster when the Sydney Swans take on Carlton at the SCG this week.

With Friday night’s clash with the Blues expected to sell out, McVeigh said the game was an opportunity for the Swans to return to the winners’ list in front of a huge Sydney crowd.

“We’ve had a few Friday night games this year which we’ve really enjoyed and after the way we played on the weekend (against Port Adelaide) we’re going to have to step up and we look forward to doing that and hopefully there is a big Swans crowd out there,” he said.

“Fortunately for us we get to play Friday night against Carlton and it’s a short week so we can get back out there and put in a good performance.

“We’ve just got to get back to the way we want to play and we know what that is. It’s being a hard contested team and working both ways which we were very far from last weekend and we need to get back to that this week against the Blues.”

McVeigh said he had been impressed with Carlton’s form so far this season and highlighted their recent effort against ladder leaders Hawthorn as one of their best performances to date.

“They’ve been in really good form,” he said.

“They lost against Hawthorn, but they still played quite well.

“It’s always a big test against Carlton and we respect the way they go about it and we’re looking forward to playing them on Friday night.”

The co-captain said his team were determined to improve on their most recent performance following the Swans’ disappointing 18-point loss to Port Adelaide at AAMI Stadium.

McVeigh said his side would need to return to their contested brand of football if they are going to get on top of the Blues this week.

“(Last week) was probably our worst result for the year but it was a credit to Port because they played really well and turned the pressure up on us and we couldn’t go with them,” McVeigh said.

“I think the main thing was the hardness at the footy - Port cracked in and turned it up and we didn’t go, so when they keep doing that, they get on top.

“Someone’s got to stop it whether that’s a centre clearance or an aggressive tackle or a hard ground ball.

“When it’s your turn, you’ve got to do something about it and as a group we didn’t do that and it cost us in the end.”

While there weren’t many standout individual performances against Port on the weekend, McVeigh said he was impressed with the efforts of midfielder Josh Kennedy and Swans debutant Kurt Tippett in last week’s clash.

“I think Joey Kennedy fought really hard through the middle, but other than that, we probably couldn’t say that we had too many winners out on the day, which was really disappointing from our point of view,” McVeigh said.

“(Kurt) also started really well and competed for us and it was obviously his first game back so he was going to run out of legs, so he had a fair bit of rest time, but the way he competed and the way he started was really positive for us and hopefully he can take another step this week.”