Brett Goodes is a likely addition to the Western Bulldogs’ back six on Saturday night against Gold Coast, after serving the two week suspension he incurred in round five.

Senior Coach Brendan McCartney said the 29-year-old will provide valuable support to the relatively young and inexperienced defensive line of recent weeks.

“Defenders who can play those roles on dangerous small forwards are really handy,” McCartney said.

“We’ve put our defence under a lot of pressure this year, [in the] last couple of weeks they haven’t handled it as well as they would have liked but the first five weeks they stood up really well.

“It’s more of a team thing and we welcome [Goodes] back in.”

McCartney said the aim this week was not to fade out late in quarters, as it did in the recent loss to the Kangaroos.

“80% of the quarter we did things well and then let it drop in the last maybe five or six minutes of each quarter,” he said.

“Which is a problem for us – it’s a problem for most teams that are in that phase where they are learning the game and trying to advance young people’s careers.

“Instead of maybe being level or a couple up at three quarter time, we were a couple down and that opened the game up a little bit.

“We felt last week we did things well for 80% of the game and we need to be able to do it for longer.”