Many were surprised to see number one AFL draft pick Jamarra Ugle-Hagan playing in the Western Bulldogs’ reserves game today, rather than their official practice game against Hawthorn.
The hit-out took place at the Whitten Oval today, with the Hawks overrunning the Dogs in the last quarter.
Bulldogs assistant coach Steven King said they’re taking it slow with Ugle-Hagan and working on his tank after the 2020 NAB League season was derailed by COVID-19 in Victoria.
“Jamarra’s just working on his base fitness and slowly working on his craft, but he’s coming along nicely,” King told SEN’s Dwayne’s World.
“You watch him at training and he’s got that brilliance about him. It’s just probably the consistent workload and that fitness base and strength and conditioning after missing a year and a half of footy and just getting that up as a key forward.
“We’ve found just doing some competitive stuff against bigger bodied backs, those repeat efforts, it’ll take some time for his tank to build.”
Fellow key forward Aaron Naughton sat out the game, but King said Dogs fans shouldn’t be worried.
“He (Naughton) would have played if it was an AFL game,” King said.
“Just copped a knock to the hip in our intra-club last week and he’ll play Monday week.”
Stefan Martin started in the ruck for the Dogs, with Tim English starting inside 50. King expects the former Lion to take a fair share of the ruck load across the season.
“I think they’ll split time, but Tim has showed some really good signs for us forward as well. We got Stefan down to shoulder that ruck burden and mentor Tim and Jordon Sweet,” he said.
“Stef’s going to have to learn how to play forward too in our system as well, but predominantly he’ll start ruck with Tim to absorb that ruck load.”