WHEN Brian Lake was deemed fit to play last weekend just over a month after hip surgery, he was feeling healthy and enthusiastic about running out for his first game for the year.

However, he didn't consider a late bout of gastro would intervene and almost ruin his return to the field.

"It's a nuisance when you come back from surgery, you're ready to play your first game and you wake up at four o'clock in the morning [the night before], throwing your guts up," Lake said on Wednesday.

"The hip was fine but everything else wasn't feeling too good. I was feeling pretty crook, so it was disappointing.

"I got out there and I actually wasn't able to contribute much but I was able to play my part, and the hip's pulled up well so that's good."

Lake, 26, caught the illness after his son Cohen and partner Shannon went through it, and unfortunately peaked at the worst time possible – on the eve of Sunday's clash with Adelaide.

"I got to sleep the night before and when I woke up I wasn't too good," he said.

"I guess one good thing was I wasn't able to do the night feeds as I had to stay away from the little fella.

"But I was throwing up before the game and at halftime so it wasn't great.

"I'm lucky I'm not a midfielder and I could hold back every now and again and come off for a bit of a breather, but I got through it so it was alright."

Stomach bug aside, Lake admitted he entered Sunday's match somewhat underdone after missing all of the Bulldogs' pre-season practice matches while he recovered from surgery to remove cartilage from his hip.

"It was pretty touch and go from when I had surgery [in early February] to playing round one," he said.

"I maybe could have [played in the pre-season] but I wouldn't have been able to do too much, I probably would have only been able to play a quarter because I hadn't been able to do any sprint work up until the week before.

"It's just that last week up until round one I was able to do that sprint work."

Lake, although he said he's never endured a lengthy injury that has halted his ability to run before, expects to be back at full fitness "hopefully this week, but probably in a few".

"You can do as much running, all the shuttles runs and stuff like that, but [playing] is just completely different," he said.

"You can do all the controlled running here but in the games there isn't a lot of control, it's a lot of instinct stuff so you pull up sore. You go hard for 10 to 15 minutes and there's the excitement of the game and the crowd.

"Then you have a couple of minutes rest and you're just buggered. It's going to take a couple of weeks to get that sort of fitness."