Carlton spearhead Harry McKay has praised returning star Sam Walsh after the pair starred in the Blues’ huge win over Port Adelaide on Saturday.

The Blues exploded with the first six goals of the game and were never really troubled on their way to the 18.10 (118) to 9.10 (64) result.

McKay, who took time away from football earlier this year to deal with mental health problems, was the highlight of the lacklustre game with his bag of seven goals.

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The Coleman medallist was playing with a smile on his face as helped himself to seven straight, as well as racking up a career-high 21 disposals, 15 score involvements and six marks.

The seven-goal haul matches his previous best against Fremantle in 2021, the same season he won the Coleman Medal.

Walsh, playing his first game since Round 14, racked up 28 disposals in limited game time.

The gun midfielder had been sidelined with a foot injury, but showed no signs of rust in his return.

McKay labelled his teammate a “freak” with his workrate.

“He is a freak. What a man. The energy he brings, the way he goes at the ball, his ferocity is unbelievable,” McKay said.

“So glad he is back, the fact he wants to come back and play two games just sums him up.”

Walsh was delighted to be back and never really considered not returning.

“It’s great to be back, for the boys to be able to play like that, I sort of have sensed it’s been coming the past couple of weeks so I might have timed my run well coming back into the team. You just can’t beat being out here,” he told Fox Footy.

“There’s no doubt it’s been a bloody tough year, all you want to do is finish off the season with a bit of momentum to take that into next year.

“Feeling really good ... I had people probably telling me to not come back and just rest and get ready for pre-season, but if my body is right then I’m going to be going. There’s no doubt it’s been a challenging couple of years for me but I’m going to back my work in and go from there.”

With Michael Voss’ future as coach secure into next year, the Blues raced out of the blocks at Marvel Stadium on Saturday with their best first half of the season - 13.5 to lead by 55 points at the main break.

After finishing off strongly in last week’s defeat to Gold Coast with a blistering final term, the Blues again played more like the finals team of 2023 and 2024 than the strugglers of 2025.

Tom De Koning, who is expected to accept a monster contract from St Kilda in the trade period, was immense back in the ruck.

Carlton had been using De Koning up forward and as a second ruck option for large parts of this season, but he has shown the last two weeks he is best suited to the middle.

Preliminary finalists last year, Port have been crawling to the end of the home-and-away season in Ken Hinkley’s last season in charge.

It was hard to find any winners for them against the Blues, but rookie forward Jack Whitlock showed promise with the first three goals of his career.

Port will be desperate to put in a better showing next Friday night when they farewell Hinkley and club legend Travis Boak when they host Gold Coast at Adelaide Oval.

- With AAP