WESTERN Bulldogs defender Lukas Markovic has revealed how a seemingly minor hamstring strain sidelined him for nine weeks.

Markovic is desperate to make up for lost time after his return to the Bulldogs line-up was delayed by a hamstring tendon problem that initially went undetected.

The no-frills backman, who last week played his first AFL game since round three, told westernbulldogs.com.au that scans at first failed to the reveal the true extent of the injury.

Get to know Lukas Markovic, watch BulldogsTV's interview with him on the media player above.

Markovic's frustration - and that of the Dogs - was aggravated by the fact that he had worked himself into perhaps career-best form before he suffered the injury complications.

His season had started in disastrous fashion at Etihad Stadium with West Coast star Josh Kennedy bagging seven goals on him, but the unflappable Markovic quickly repaid the Bulldogs' faith by performing admirable jobs on Adelaide forward Taylor Walker and St Kilda skipper Nick Riewoldt.

The Saints thrashed the Bulldogs by 63 points at Etihad Stadium in round three, but Markovic kept Riewoldt to just 13 touches and two goals, earning him praise from coach Brendan McCartney for being one of the few Dogs to win their position.

View Lukas Markovic's player profile.

Team disappointment aside, it was perhaps the highest individual moment of the 25-year-old former Hawthorn rookie's hard-earned career.

But then Markovic was confronted with another hurdle.

Just days after nullifying Riewoldt, he hurt the hamstring at training and was a late withdrawal for the round four clash with Melbourne.

It was the first time Markovic had experienced a 'hammy' problem; in fact, it was his first soft-tissue injury.

View the westernbulldogs.com.au match preview of Fremantle Vs Western Bulldogs.

But with scans failing to detect any damage, and the discomfort disappearing, Markovic was cleared to resume training within a fortnight.

Almost immediately he felt the same stabbing pain at the back of his thigh.

What was expected to be simply a minor flare-up that might cost him a week, maybe two, was then confirmed as something more serious.

Further scans revealed a small tear in the hamstring tendon - an injury that usually requires six weeks on the sidelines. In all, it was more than two months between games for Markovic.

"I'd never had anything like it before so I didn't know how it was meant to feel," he said.

"We couldn’t do anything about it, though - we trusted the scan and it showed nothing, so we just treated it by the symptoms."

Markovic's first game back was at Frankston with VFL affiliate Williamstown, which then had a bye, before he was promoted to the Bulldogs side for last Saturday night's game against Essendon.

"The leg's feeling fine now," he said.

"I've been back in full training for a few weeks now and I haven’t even thought about (the injury)."

It was just the latest triumph over adversity for Markovic.

A forward and ruck prospect as a junior, he dislocated an ankle while playing for with Eastern Ranges in the TAC Cup, but was still rookie-listed by the Hawks at the end of 2005.

In his first season in the AFL system he broke the same ankle, which raised doubts over his durability, and was promptly delisted.

Markovic remained with the Hawks' VFL affiliate Box Hill to "stay under their nose".

Then, in 2009, he was drafted by the Bulldogs at pick 63.

"My debut last year was the highlight of my life," he said.

"It made all the hard work worth it. And there's a lot of hard work to go because I want to do bigger and better things to pay the club back for giving me this opportunity."

Markovic doesn't reflect on his duel with Kennedy with a sense of dread. Instead, he regards it as "a good learning curve".

"No-one likes to be on the receiving end like that, but there are some positives to take from it," he said.

"'Macca' (coach Brendan McCartney) was happy to leave me on him, and in those situations you have to find other ways to at least halve the contest, which I did a few times.

"There's no point dwelling on being beaten or making mistakes.

"Learn from it, but you just can’t afford to let it get to you. You can't sook out there - you need to move on straight away and focus on the next thing. It's important to stay in the moment."

Markovic has carved a career out of doing just that.