Western Bulldogs senior coach Luke Beveridge is expecting his side to face a fiery Carlton outfit on Saturday night.
Similar to what the Bulldogs copped following their 0-2 start to the season, a lot of criticism has been placed on the Blues in recent weeks – leading Beveridge to believe the opposition will be fired up and ready to prove that commentary wrong.
“They’re probably in a similar position to what we were in after round 2 – where there’s some commentary around how you’re going and how you’re not going,” Beveridge told reporters on Friday morning.
“As I said at the time (when we were going through that) is that there’s no rebuttal. You’ve just got to deal with it and focus on the things that are going to really help you gain some momentum.
“We’ve been pretty productive over the last month and a half, and (Carlton) is more than capable – we know that.
“We’re on edge about how they are going to react to some of the criticism and what that means as far as a spike in anything.
“We’ve got to prepare ourselves to make sure we meet that.”
Beveridge has been pleased with the brand of footy his team has produced as of late, winning five of their past six matches.
Saturday night will also mark Liam Jones’ first meeting against his former club, adding some valuable insight to the team meetings this week.
“It’s good to see the boys in the right frame of mind,” Beveridge said.
“The boys are always grateful when they find a way to come together and play formidable footy – and footy that’s hard to play against.
“We’re always wanting to score as much as we can, but some of the defensive disciplines have come to the fore. That’s been important for us.
“I think there’s always one or two things – Jonesy was even talking about their defensive line a bit in our team meeting today. He can help with the other end of the ground and their strengths down there.
“There’s always something of substance that a former player from a former club can help you with, so we’ve listened to Jonesy.
“He knows that 99.9% will be totally about us and what we need to do, but there’s no doubt we’ll be paying a bit of attention to what they’re capable of.”
All Public GA and reserved seat tickets for Saturday’s clash at Marvel Stadium are now exhausted.
The match will be broadcast via Fox Footy and Kayo Sports.
