Injury could flip Bulldogs’ season

THE Western Bulldogs are fearing key forward Josh Bruce tore his ACL in Sunday’s loss to Essendon.

The injury occurred in the dying seconds of the contest in a tackling attempt, following his three-goal performance.

The shattering injury compounded what was arguably the Dogs’ worst performance of the season, going down by 13 points to the Bombers.

“It’s not looking good,” Western Bulldogs coach Luke Beveridge said of Bruce post-match.

“Our guys will confirm what the outcome is after a scan tomorrow.

“We don’t know the extent of it, you get ones that surprise you so we’ll still hold out a bit of hope.”

Number one draft pick Jamarra Ugle-Hagan has been a regular fixture for the Bulldogs over the last month and will likely need to carry a heavier load in Bruce’s absence.

“When you consider that [Ugle-Hagan] has played five games now, is he ready to rip apart the last two games and a finals series?

“I don’t think any young key forward, maybe other than Dermott [Brereton] in his first game when he kicked five [in a final] has done that,” Beveridge said.

“We have [Naughton] down there and what you’re alluding to is who are the next ones?

“We’ll have to dig deep and we might have to do it a bit of a different way as we have in the past and that affects your decisions and probably your ball use going inside 50 a little bit more.

“The challenge of this caper from a coaching point of view is finding a way when the template changes.”

The Bulldogs take on Hawthorn in Round 22 before completing the home-and-away season against Port Adelaide.

– BY NIC NEGREPONTIS/ SEN