THE PLIGHT of gravely ill former club president Richard Pratt was a powerful motivating factor in Carlton's surprisingly heavy win over the Western Bulldogs according to coach Brett Ratten.

"We had a lot of motivation. We knew Dick was at home watching the game, so to give him a performance from his favourite team to sit back and watch was very pleasing," Ratten said.

"I think it would have made the two hours that he watched the game very enjoyable.

"We didn't go over the top about it, but we thought it would be very nice if we could do something enjoyable for him over that two hours of the telecast.

"He's done so much for our club and he's just been a wonderful person to us so we thought we could actually repay him with a really good hard tough performance."

great effort by the boys to lift for dick and show everyone we really are coming.