Western Bulldogs vice-captain Easton Wood will not need surgery to repair his hamstring, and could return to football this season.
Wood suffered a hamstring injury in the opening quarter of the Dogs' win over Brisbane on Saturday afternoon, and needed to be helped off the field and didn't return.
Head physiotherapist Chris Bell told the club's website on Monday Wood did suffer a high-grade hamstring injury, but said he could return for week one of the finals.
“We’ve worked through a process which has included specialist opinion and we’ve decided that the best form of management will be conservative management, and that Easton does not require surgery,” Bell told westernbulldogs.com.au.
“We have started our rebab programming already and hope to have Easton running at the back end of this week.”
Defender Jason Johannisen was a late withdrawal from Saturday's match against the Lions, and Bell confirmed it was just a precaution.
“Jason is a real high speed athlete so we weren’t prepared to take any risk with these symptoms so we withdrew him from the game.”
“JJ’s come in really well today and we’ll work through a process with him this week to determine if he’s available to play this weekend.”
In more good news for the Bulldogs, forward Jake Stringer is set to return to action this weekend after suffering a hamstring injury against Carlton in round 17.
“Jake has continued to show great progress on his hamstring injury. He completed a game-like training session on the weekend and has pulled up really well,” Bell said.
“If Jake ticks out boxes this week with training he’ll be available to play.”