After being ambushed by the Blues in Round 4, Collingwood has done everything possible to ensure that lightning cannot and will not strike twice, according to coach Mick Malthouse.
The Magpies go into Sunday's return bout with the Blues still smarting from their 33-point loss eight weeks ago which brought to an end Carlton's record-equalling 13-match losing streak and which provided Brett Ratten with a sweet first victory as an AFL coach.
Collingwood was out-planned, outplayed and outmanoeuvred that day, but won’t be on Sunday, according to Malthouse.
"There's an awareness of what went wrong last time and it's so important to recognise failure and why it took place, not to wipe it off and just dismiss it because you learn nothing," said Malthouse at the Lexus Centre on Thursday.
"Life's about being taught and listening and I'm confident the group has been buoyed by the last month but, more importantly, there's an anticipation about this week as opposed to when we came off a Richmond win (in Round 3) and there was a general lull within the organisation where we just didn't seem to be sparking."
"Right now I feel we're well in front of that."
Veteran defender Shane Wakelin, for whom Sunday's match will be his 150th in black and white, said Collingwood's youngsters in particular have matured enormously over the past month and can be expected to have 'a real crack' against the Blues.
"We obviously didn’t prepare ourselves well enough last time against them - we’ve got a lot to prove this weekend," Wakelin said.
"We were extremely disappointed with our efforts on the last occasion and Sunday is an ideal testing ground to show how far we believe we've come over the last month."
Malthouse said the Pies, who are riding high on the back of victories over St Kilda, Geelong, West Coast and Melbourne over the past month, were only now starting to enjoy the rewards of a tough pre-season.
That's the same pre-season, incidentally, that Josh Fraser openly blamed for the flat patch in Rounds 4-5 when Collingwood lost to the Blues and North Melbourne.
"Our pre-season was always going to be difficult, it was going to run us a fine line towards the beginning of the season as opposed to the end," said Malthouse.
"The trip to South Africa and Dubai was always going to be exhausting and it was a matter of seeing how long that took to overcome."
"As a consequence form was going to bounce around early in the season but it has certainly strengthened over the last five or six weeks to the point where these young players are over any fatigue and now they’re reaping the benefits of the training camp we had because it's now into their system and they feel strong and confident."