Western Bulldogs coach Luke Beveridge says his team is looking no further than Carlton this weekend, when it comes to forecasting their season.
The Bulldogs will host the Blues at Marvel Stadium tomorrow afternoon, looking to rectify last weekend’s performance against the top-two side.
Beveridge said based on Carlton’s team selection he is expecting them to make a late change, while also preparing for tagger Alex Cincotta to be sent to one of the Dogs’ in-form on-ballers.
“When you look at both teams in terms of their key backs, we’re both a bit undersized possibly,” he told media on Friday morning.
“Jacob Weitering has been a real brick wall down there for them for a long period of time...but we anticipate that they’ll probably make a change.
“Our history has been that we haven't made any late changes when we haven't sort of postured to do that. I think the way they've picked their emergencies with a midfielder and two small forwards, we sort of anticipate that maybe one of their bigs is coming out, otherwise they are quite tall in their front end.
“We expect (Cincotta) to have a role but we’re not sure what it will be. He’s played various roles, at either end of the ground through that midfield, so we've had some discussion trying to crystal ball some of that.
“We’ll have to have some contingencies there for our players to work with each other and adapt depending on where he goes.”
Beveridge also reiterated the ‘one-week-at-a-time’ mantra.
“You just can’t look any further forward than the challenge right in front of you. Sometimes what narrows your focus even more...is coming off a performance like last week against Port,” he said.
“(We want to) rectify that and get things back on our terms. In the competition, everyone’s dealing with some adversity here and there, and there’s some things you can control and some things you can’t – our players know that.
“We’re really looking forward to providing that inspiration for each other, and a much better performance this week than we did the previous.”
The Bulldogs and Blues will go head-to-head from 4.35pm AEST tomorrow afternoon.