Western Bulldogs coach Luke Beveridge says that the NAB Challenge will provide players with an opportunity to press their claims for round one selection against Fremantle on March 27.
Beveridge will take an experienced squad to Canberra to face the Giants on Thursday, the second year coach telling reporters that the competition amongst the group for spots is healthy.
“I think it helps, it definitely helps,” Beveridge said.
“We get Libba back, we get Koby (Stevens) back, we got some experience in, in Jed (Adcock) and Matty Suckling, and some bright young prospects who’re already putting pressure on our second and third year players, so it’ll help as it does in any organisation.”
The first ruck position is one in particular that will be hotly contested across the next month of the preseason competition.
A handful shared the responsibility in 2015, and Beveridge said form will be the ultimate decider for who’s rewarded with the round one start.
“All of our potential candidates will play through there during the NAB series and whoever plays the best will grab the one or two, or even three spots for that first game against Fremantle,” he said.
“It’s between Will [Minson], it's between Jordan (Roughead), it’s between Tommy Campbell, Tommy Boyd, Jack Redpath who we know pinch hit there last year, and Luke Goetz.
“It will take him a while, but it’s probably between those five guys, whether or not they’ll share the load or we’ve got one or two who have a 50/50 type approach.”
Bulldogs fans will get the chance to see four new faces step out onto StarTrak Oval on Thursday night, including former Hawthorn premiership player Suckling, ex-Lion Adcock, and draftees Kieran Collins and Marcus Adams.
Speaking to media from the historic Sun Theatre in Yarraville as part of as part of Western Bulldogs Community Club week, Beveridge said Suckling’s role was still evolving and Adams, at 23 years old, was a special case.
“They’ve all had good pre-seasons,” he said.
“Marcus comes to us as a mature athlete who we don’t need to protect from the rigours of the whole pre-season because he’s had a number of them, so where we would take first year players out, he’s stayed in and done the whole lot.
“And Kieran has been quite impressive in our match simulation and in his ability to absorb how we want him to play in our systems.
“So they both deserve to be in the squad and both will be playing on Thursday.
“Most of the boys have had pretty productive preseasons and we’re going to pick our best side this week on availability and we’ll probably give as many players as we can a chance in the second one.”
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