Ryan Griffen is likely to return to the Bulldogs side this weekend against Essendon after illness forced him to withdraw from last week’s game in Cairns, Medical Services Manager Andrew McKenzie says.

“Ryan just had a gut complaint prior to the game and he was monitored by the doctors over a period of time and just thought he wasn’t going to be right to be able to play the game,” McKenzie said.

“Since then he’s actually improved a lot, and he’s come back and he’s been training today so he will be back up and going this week.”

INJURY LIST: View the full Western Bulldogs injury list ahead of round 18 against Essendon.

Adam Cooney is another experienced player who is in the mix to return against Essendon on Sunday, pending fitness tests at training this week.

“Adam has been tracking really well, he’s got through some really quick speed running on the weekend and he will be a test to train this week and test his availability,” he said.

After injuring his pectoral muscle in round eight against Melbourne, Tory Dickson has continued to increase his training load and could be in line to return to football as soon as this weekend. 

“Tory has also been out for a little while, he’s been building his strength over the last month, that’s coming along well,” he said.

“He’s a test to play this week to so he needs to get through another training session and we’ll assess him then.”

Josh Prudden injured his knee against Box Hill Hawks in the VFL, and will be also closely monitored this week.

“He landed on his knee awkwardly during the game but he was able to play on for a little while,” McKenzie said.

“We’ve assessed him over the last couple of days, we are just letting things settle down and we will do some more tests over the week and see how it goes.”