Luke Beveridge addressed the media ahead on Sunday’s season opener against the Giants, and westernbulldogs.com.au lists the five key takeaways.
1. We have a confirmed debutant
In news that probably won’t surprise Dogs fans who watched the JLT Community Series closely, Beveridge has confirmed that first-year defender Aaron Naughton will make his debut for the Club on Sunday.
“Aaron will play. It’s a bit unusual for a young key position player to come on the scene and look comfortable so quickly but he’s a big strong strapping lad and we’ve liked what we’ve seen.
“We don’t used the word ‘exciting’ too often, but it is exciting to see such a young player go out and pit his game against some of the best in the game.
“We’ll hold our breath at times, but he’s shown enough. He took seven intercept marks in the previous JLT which is a big statement from a young player”
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2. Easton Wood will start forward on Sunday
The skipper has been training as a forward all summer and you can expect to see him line-up in front of goal come Sunday.
‘’I haven’t been that vocal about it, but he’s teammates have found it hard to play on him throughout the course of the pre-season.
“Easton’s athletic profile in our code is second to none, with his power, his speed and his endurance and put together with his courage and skill aspects, he’s a formidable opponent whether he’s back or forward.
‘’Defenders learn how some of the best forwards play too, which Easton has over a period of time and that’s probably helped arm him with some information and some artillery in his game, and we’ve seen some really good signs.”
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3. Boyd & Schache
The Dogs have more than a few options if they want to go tall this season, and Beveridge outlined where his two developing young forwards are selection-wise ahead of Round 1.
‘’Tom’s missed a little bit of the program and is just finding his feet again performance-wise but I’ve got no doubt he’ll force his way into the team over the course of the next month.
‘’And Josh is a young forward who’s got a bright future and is right on the edge of our 22, so whether or not he gets a game this week we’ll finalise that Thursday/Friday.
“I know that publicly there’s interest in their journey and they won’t be in the team until the show us that they should be in the team and there’s competition there at the moment and so they’re just on the edge.’’
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4. Setting the record straight
The network had published a story on Monday night suggesting that a handful of Bulldogs had been on the trading block during the offseason, which the coach took head on.
“It’s really disappointing because here we are heading into Round 1 and there’s a lie online about us as a Club, who love our players to death, putting them up for trade, because it didn’t happen.
[The players] are not [upset] because it’s a complete surprise to them and I don’t think for a minute they thought it was true, which is important. But for it to be floated as a fact, and for it not to be true is unethical and disappointing.”
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5. Big Roughy is good to go
And in good news for Dogs fans Jordan Roughead is a confirmed starter.
The big man fell awkwardly during the final JLT match against Collingwood in Moe and sat out the rest of the game as a precaution. Stand-in coach Steven King said at the time that he’d slipped on the cricket pitch and took a knock to his hip, but either way, Beveridge has confirmed that we’ll see him out there on the weekend.
‘Yeah, he trained yesterday and got he through fine and he’s fine so he’ll play on Sunday.’’
