The club remains buoyed by the 27-year-old’s improvement from a fracture in his vertebrae and believes he is a strong chance to face the Saints at the MCG.
“It looks like it’s in the right direction,” coach Rodney Eade told SEN on Thursday morning.
“He trained yesterday and got through pretty well. We did some physical work with him and he didn’t feel anything, which was good.
“We’ll have another training session [on Friday] but at this stage it’s looking reasonably positive that he’ll play.”
Eade also said Ryan Griffen, Brian Lake and Tom Williams looked good ahead of the do-or-die final.
Griffen hurt his knee in round 22 while Williams has been sore since cannoning into Lake in the first final against Collingwood.
Lake has battled a hip problem in recent weeks, which was compounded by a knee injury sustained three weeks ago.
“They were a bit ginger last week and I thought, especially Ryan, played pretty well again [against the Swans]; he’s had two good finals,” Eade said.
“They’ve actually pulled up better than they had going into last week’s game.
“In playing a game they’ve actually improved, so we’re hopeful that will reflect in the way they play.”
Eade also said he was confident captain Brad Johnson would be a solid contributor in the Dogs’ third final after he looked stronger against the Swans than in the previous week against Collingwood.
However Eade said Adam Cooney, who sustained a hamstring tendon injury in round 21, was rated “a small chance” to play should the Bulldogs progress through to the grand final.
“He’s a long shot at this stage. He ran five km yesterday, which was good and pleasing, but he hasn’t done any football work as such,” he said.
“If we did play him it would be a gamble, but with a player of that quality you might be prepared to take the gamble, but at this stage it would be a big long shot.”
Eade forecast just the one change to their side - Morris - that will be announced late on Thursday afternoon.
He said selection meetings this week had been “interesting” as the coaching staff debated who to omit for the All Australian defender.
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