Western Bulldogs coach Luke Beveridge says his side will need to make improvements across the board against West Coast this weekend.
With two games of the home-and-away season remaining – and wins from both being the Bulldogs’ best chance of securing a finals spot – Beveridge is not taking this Sunday’s match lightly.
“(West Coast) have been competitive in alternate weeks in recent times and challenged some teams - we need to be right on edge for it and be ready to play our best footy,” he told media on Thursday morning.
“Complacency is something we can’t afford to be. There’s no doubt there were some individuals jumping on the plane out of Launceston that knew there was a difference between their very best and what they boys showed. There was a stark difference.
“We’re looking for some improvements from many – but absolutely across the board are looking for saturation in the principles of the hard things in the game.
“We’ve lost a lot of close games in recent times – Brisbane are probably the only team we’ve beaten who are higher on the ladder, but many of the others we’ve been close to.
“I’m not an excuse-maker as a coach and I never will, but there’s always reasons. We haven’t been able to deal with losing key position players in games through injury – we haven’t been able to buffer that with enough run and completion of the games.
“Each week we need to absolutely make sure we pick our team that’s going to be able to get across the ground and match the opposition, and challenge them in the athletic profile.
“I’m confident we’ll pick a team that will challenge West Coast on that front.”
Beveridge provided an update on sidelined star Tom Liberatore (concussion), while also confirming running rebounder Jason Johannisen is set to miss a second week with a calf complaint.
“(Tom’s) feeling a lot better, so we’ll wait and see. We’re hoping he might be available for the last round of the home-and-away,” the coach said.
“JJ will need to jump through some hoops to be available for that last game.
“He definitely won’t play this week, so we’ll wait and see whether or not he can get through training next week to become available down at Geelong.”
The Bulldogs will name their squad tonight at 6.20pm, before trimming that to a team of 22 on Friday at 5pm.
