Western Bulldogs senior coach Luke Beveridge says his side’s preparation for tomorrow’s match has not been compromised, despite flying out of Melbourne a day earlier than planned.
The Bulldogs arrived on the Gold Coast yesterday, as the state of Victoria recorded new locally-acquired COVID-19 cases.
Beveridge said while they had to re-adjust their training schedule based on the change of plans, he is confident his team is ready for the challenge of facing the Suns.
“You’ve just got to roll with the punches – we’ll be fine,” Beveridge told media over Zoom.
“You’ve just got to deal with it. In the end we had a training run and achieved what we wanted to achieve out of it, so it shouldn’t (compromise us).
"We’ve probably had a little bit more notice with some of our other interstate trips, and have been away a bit longer on some of those other ones, so we knew what we were in for.
“This one has been just a little bit different – we had to sort of rush ourselves to get (to the airport) and get away, but now that we’ve gotten to Friday and have had a meeting or two this morning, we can just chill out a little bit, and centre our focus for tomorrow and the Gold Coast Suns.”
Beveridge admitted he has been impressed with the Suns in recent weeks.
“When you think about the pressure they were under, obviously their chairman put them under pressure, (media) was questioning them, and even their viability – you can imagine how they’ve galvanised since then,” he said.
“They’ve done well – they’ve rebounded, they’ve had a couple of impressive wins against Richmond and GWS.
“Usually whenever we play them, they always challenge us with their work ethic and what they do well. We’re expecting that tomorrow.”
Aaron Naughton and Josh Dunkley headline a handful of changes to the Bulldogs’ line-up, with Beveridge lauding his group for adapting without them.
“After the game last week, I said it’s always a little bit disrespectful to the 22 or 23 that are picked, to start talking about players that are out of your side because in any given week, we believe that we field strong enough sides to win those games,” Beveridge said.
“As eluded to though, Aaron has become a really influential key forward in the game, and ‘Dunks’ had such an enormous start to the year.
“Adjusting what you do when you lose a midfielder of that quality is always going to be a challenge, but our players have been able to do that – and with Adam (Treloar) going out of the side not long after.”
The Bulldogs will meet the Suns at Metricon Stadium tomorrow at 4.35pm AEST.
