Jason Akermanis' first game against his old side has come a little earlier than expected and Rodney Eade is happy to get what will be a big match for his star recruit out of the way in the pre-season.Much has been written and said on both sides since Akermanis' acrimonious split with the Lions, but Eade is confident that the 30-year-old can maintain his focus ahead of the match."Who said we're going to put a lid on the hype?," a smiling Eade said from Whitten Oval on Monday."I haven't spoken to him about that aspect, but I think, to be honest, he's more focused on us."I mean there's going to be a lot of interest because it's his old team and probably the angst that happened last year, but I think he's just more keen to be a part of our team and the way we're going forward."(But) I think it's good for Jason to be able to play against his old team early … it's going to add a bit for our supporters."Despite advancing to the second week of the competition, Eade maintained his Dogs are tracking toward peak performance in round one of the home-and-away season and that won't change regardless of how far they progress."We're still totally preparing for round one and we've got to stick to that. We can't force Brad Johnson to play four games of 100 minutes, the same with Scott West, because then it becomes counter-productive for round one," he said."It will still be a graded program (if we win this week), so for round three Robert Murphy, Chris Grant and Adam Cooney will come back and they'll get half a game each. We can't afford to play them for three quarters just for the sake of trying to get over the line because it could actually put them back for round one."With just a six-day break between matches, the Bulldogs are taking a no-risk approach to this week's match against the Lions with Johnson, Cameron Wight and Ryan Griffen to be monitored during the week after picking up corkies against the Swans.Ryan Hargreave, Nathan Eagleton, Dale Morris and Peter Street are likely to return for Friday night's match at Telstra Dome.