Source :- PERTH NOW NEWS
Star Bulldogs ruckman Tim English is in doubt to take on West Coast at Marvel Stadium on Sunday.
English has been injury-riddled so far this season, dealing with knee, hamstring and concussion issues.
And after a poor outing last week against Sydney, where he had only eight hitouts and 10 touches compared with Brodie Grundy’s 60 hitouts and 17 disposals, his fitness has come under question.
At a press conference on Thursday, Western Bulldogs coach Luke Beveridge said English probably hadn’t been ready to face Sydney and revealed he needed to get through training well to be able to play this week.
“In hindsight, he maybe wasn’t totally ready to play last week, so that’s unfortunate because that’s costly,” he said.
“If he, at the end of this session, isn’t really physically ready to (play), then he won’t play. It’s quite simple.”
If English were to be ruled out of Sunday’s contest, it would leave a big hole for the Dogs, with former Docker Rory Lobb then having to play more time as a ruck instead of being able to swing between defence and attack.
English’s absence could also be just the boost the Eagles need around the contest to recapture their clearance form, which has deserted them since the bye in round 15.
West Coast were smashed by Carlton in that area two weeks ago, while their midfield struggles early on against the Crows last week proved their undoing.
Beveridge admitted his side’s ruck stocks were low and added it would be difficult to find the right balance.
“Our stocks are low, we have some young fellas, Caleb Mage has come in in the mid-year draft as a ruck. He’s going to take a little while,” he said.
“Lachie Smith’s played a little bit there. Louis Emmett, we’ve, you know, realised during that process of giving our younger players some exposure that they’re not quite ready to help us win games in that position.
“Rory’s been a pretty good key defender in the last period of time, but at the moment, without Sam Darcy and, you know, (Jordan) Crofty’s emerging as a young key forward.
“He played a bit on the wing in recent times, and so to make sure we’ve got representation forward of the ball, we’ve needed Lobby a bit there as well.
“We’d like to have Rory play forward a bit as well as ruck, so whether we can achieve that, especially if Tim doesn’t play, will be a pretty big challenge.”
