Western Bulldogs veteran Dale Morris will return to the line up this weekend to face St Kilda, after a successful return from injury in the VFL last week.
Morris injured his pectoral in round three against Hawthorn and has not played a senior game since but came through Footscray’s win unscathed and will be the sole addition to the Bulldogs side that will face the Saints on Saturday night.
Bulldogs senior assistant coach Brett Montgomery said Morris’ presence had been missed in defence and would provide a handy acquisition.
“We’re always looking for a Dale Morris name tag in our line up and we’re confident with where he’s at, his body’s at and most importantly he’s confident that’s recovered.
“We wanted to get him, we thought he did enough last week to impress… so he comes back in and strengthens us up, gives us a bit of maturity that we’ve been looking for for most of the year.”
The Bulldogs will take on the Saints for the second time in seven weeks, with the Saints running out winners in round six by seven points.
Montgomery said that despite the Saints overcoming a 55-point deficit that day, the Dogs would treat this clash the same as any other.
“We’re striving for (a four quarter effort) every week, just because we come up against the Saints again and that was our most noticeable fadeout, nothing really changes.
“We’re a very different team in terms of selection, I think we’ve got six different players to that fixture last time and they’ve probably got three or four.”
The midfield battle between the two sides looms as the most exciting across the ground, with both sides’ young talent helping to develop attacking game styles.
“They’ve got some really promising young kids, their midfield is strong.
“They look like they’re really starting to get some confidence and getting proactive inside.
“We think we’re going to have a pretty tough day in there but we’re playing the two ruckman again which we think can have some obvious benefits.”
Nathan Hrovat has been omitted from the side, while Shane Biggs, Josh Prudden and Jack Redpath have been named as emergencies.
ROUND 13 – St Kilda v Western Bulldogs
Saturday 27 June, 7:20pm
Venue: Etihad Stadium
| Full back | E Wood | J Hamling | M Boyd |
| Half back | R Murphy | J Roughead | J Johannisen |
| Centreline | J Macrae | M Wallis | T Dickson |
| Half forward | L Dahlhaus | J Stringer | J Grant |
| Full forward | M Bontempelli | T Boyd | F Roberts |
| Followers | W Minson | K Stevens | L Picken |
| Interchange | T McLean | L Webb | B Dale |
| D Morris | |||
| Emergencies | S Biggs | J Prudden | J Redpath |
In: D Morris
Out: N Hrovat (omitted)
