THE WESTERN Bulldogs hold “significant concern” over yet another calf injury suffered by midfielder Adam Treloar, which forced the reigning All-Australian to be substituted out of Sunday’s victory over Richmond in the second quarter.
It’s the third calf setback Treloar has faced this season, having initially hurt himself in January before suffering yet another month-long interruption in May.
The Dogs said during the match that Treloar was dealing with “calf tightness”, but coach Luke Beveridge said the fact it was yet another soft tissue injury heightened the club’s fears for the 32-year-old midfielder.
“He’s had a fair few over the journey,” Beveridge said after his side’s 79-point win.
“For us to sub him out that early in the game, there’s a degree of significant concern. As usual, it’s difficult to tell the extent of the injury. We’ll obviously report in pretty quickly once the experts know.”
Treloar had spent a significant amount of time getting treated for the injury during the second quarter of the Dogs’ convincing win, with the veteran eventually subbed out having initially tried to return to the action.
Beveridge said he recognised that Treloar was struggling early in the match and said the club’s medical staff wouldn’t take any risks.
“I picked that up pretty quickly actually. No one is allowed to hobble. It doesn’t matter who they are. He’s been a really, really influential player for us and the questions start being asked pretty quickly,” Beveridge said.
“Some of the lads, and Adam is one of those, is such a proud player. Sometimes they want to work through discomfort and sometimes they’re not sure and can’t differentiate between discomfort and injury.
“Once he came off, the boys assessed him, strapped him up – that’s what he was after – he tried it out, but he was incapacitated and we had to take him off. That will never last long, any hobble gets eradicated pretty quickly for our 18 on the field.”
Bulldogs defender James O’Donnell also sat out the entire final quarter with adductor tightness, but the club is confident he will be fine to face Sydney at the SCG despite a quick five-day turnaround ahead of Friday night’s clash.
“We were conservative,” Beveridge said. “We play Friday against Sydney. We felt that we’d be better equipped to get him off and sit him down and start to recover. We think he’s going to be OK, it’s just a bit of tightness. I don’t think there’s any significant injury at this stage.”
Marcus Bontempelli (36 disposals, three goals) and Sam Darcy (19 disposals, five goals) both dominated on Sunday, particularly in the second quarter when the Dogs kicked seven unanswered majors to lay the foundations for the thrashing.
Richmond coach Adem Yze said his side’s inability to make the most of a decent first term perhaps led to the side’s downfall after the quarter time break.
“The second quarter just wasn’t to standard,” he said.
“That’s been a couple of weeks in a row where we’ve started OK and just didn’t maximise our opportunities at the start. I think we had eight shots on goal in the first quarter and ended up with two goals. We just felt like that affected our spirit.
“We looked like we were working so hard to get our opportunities and their execution in the first quarter … they had less chances, but made more of each one. It felt like we should’ve been in a better position at quarter time and whether that’s affected our spirit … our second quarter, we just lost our way.”
Darcy’s importance was key throughout the game, with the big forward also taking eight marks to go with his 19 disposals and five goals.
Richmond left Noah Balta on him throughout the entirety of the match, as Ben Miller was doing a fine job on fellow Bulldogs forward Aaron Naughton, with Yze saying Balta didn’t play to his usual standards.
“He’s a star. It’s obviously great to see him back out there. Watching him last week, he obviously kept me up at night a few times,” Yze said of Darcy.
“We left Noah on him for the entire game. Ben Miller did a great job on Aaron Naughton and Aaron is an A-grade forward. The decision around that, we’ll just live by.
“Noah’s had a tough season, he’s gone in and out, but to play against these players he’s got to get better at it. He’ll know that he didn’t play to his standard today.
“He’s going to come up against very good forwards every week. At times, he’ll play really well. Other times, those forwards will get the better of him and today they did.