Bulldogs coy on Bont’s fitness

Western Bulldogs captain Marcus Bontempelli remains in some doubt for Saturday’s clash against North Melbourne but joined training at Whitten Oval on Friday.

Bontempelli appeared to move freely in lane drills early in the Bulldogs’ training session after he left the field early on Wednesday due to back spasms.

Bulldogs coach Luke Beveridge said the champion midfielder was a “more than 50 per cent” chance to play but would undergo a fitness test away from the cameras later on Friday.

“He’s going to have a little test indoors – you may not see him out there, and you may not know whether or not he’s playing,” Beveridge said.

“He seems to be OK, but we just want to make sure. From a probability point of view, he’s more on the above 50 per cent side, but I can’t tell you whether he’s playing or not.

“Most likely (a decision will be made) this morning, but with someone like Marcus, if he thinks, ‘yeah I’m pretty good, I know I’ll be a lot better tomorrow’, we’ll probably just (factor) that in.”

Beveridge said he was excited to revisit his experiment with a four-tall forward line now that Sam Darcy had significantly advanced as a player since early in 2023.

“We’re in the land of the giants. We haven’t had the three 205-plus centimetre boys in the team together much at all. During the pre-season last year we did, and that was against North Melbourne coincidentally,” Beveridge said.

“That looked OK, but during that period Sam (Darcy) was still in the infancy of getting a taste of what AFL football was about and maybe not quite ready at that point in time.

“So a year and a bit on, with his maturity, Sam is probably the keystone to it all really, with whether or not you can do it.”

Darcy or Rory Lobb could spend time on the wing or behind the ball, but Beveridge said he would not give any clues as to how he would fit the key quartet.

He said he could not look Lobb in the eye and drop him after his terrific performance against Fremantle before the bye.

“Philosophically, from a management and a coaching point of view, you just can’t omit a player like Lobby who was probably in our six most influential players against Fremantle,” he said.

“It’s almost like Darwinism in the team and natural selection – he has to play. I couldn’t walk up to Rory and say, ‘Hey mate, we can’t fit you into the team balance’.

“Let’s face it, at his best he’s a very good player, Rory, so fitting them all into our front end will be a challenge at times … you’ll probably just need to hang on and have a look at the variations of where they all play.”

Beveridge said he expected North Melbourne to be hurt by the loss of George Wardlaw after the fierce second-year midfielder was concussed at training on Thursday.

“It’s been a bit heartbreaking actually watching them the last couple of weeks – we would’ve liked for them to knock off Melbourne and the Pies, it would’ve been good for everyone who’s searching for a higher spot (on the ladder),” Beveridge said.

“They’ll need to replace (Wardlaw) because we feel he’s been very influential in their trajectory over the last month or so.”

The Bulldogs coach will likely recall Caleb Daniel or Anthony Scott to the 23 should Bontempelli be ruled out of the Kangaroos clash.