WESTERN Bulldogs forward Robert Murphy believes his side will have a decided home ground advantage over Port Adelaide this weekend when the clubs collide at TIO Stadium in Darwin on Saturday night.
Murphy, who underwent heat training on Tuesday in preparation for the trip north, believes the Dogs will be better equipped to deal with the steamy conditions than Port Adelaide, given their strong connection with the Top End.
"I've been up there six or seven times now, and it feels like - without being too corny - in a football sense, a home away from home," Murphy said, outside the heat and humidity chamber at Victoria University.
"The people up there are really welcoming and I do think it's a small advantage for us."
To give the Dogs an even greater advantage over their South Australian opponents, the players have been completing the taxing temperature training for the past month.
Murphy said while the two-to-three times a week, hour-long bike riding sessions inside the chamber can be hard to adjust to, the benefits are notable when faced with a sudden fixture involving summertime conditions.
"First up it's a bit of a shock, but after a couple of weeks you get used to it," he said.
"Having been to Darwin a fair few times, it's not too bad.
"We're pretty confident that it works, and we think it's a slight advantage, and when the competition is pretty close, you take all the advantages you can get.
"Just doing any sort of exercise in similar sorts of temperatures, your body adapts to it. With my Irish blood, I need all the help I can get up there."
The heat chamber training is just one part of the Bulldogs partnership with Victoria University which provides extensive sports science and medical support to the Club. Sports scientist Dr Rob Aughey, agrees heat training can improve a player's performance when exposed to hot conditions, as changes in individual "physiological output" can occur.
"There are lots of positive adaptations that you can get from training in hot and humid conditions," he said.
"We've been doing this for four weeks now because some of those adaptations occur really quickly. You get changes in how much you sweat and the type of fluid you sweat out, but there are some other long-term adaptations we're after that enhances our ability to perform at a high intensity, and repeat those efforts.
"They take longer than just one or two weeks, hence being in there for a month leading up to Darwin."
As far as the opposition for this Saturday night is concerned, Murphy said the Bulldogs are expecting a motivated Port Adelaide outfit to emerge from the wreckage that became its season last weekend.
"We're expecting them to come out pretty fired up," he said.
"They had a disappointing result on the weekend, they're a great football club and a pretty proud one as well, so they'll be full of venom."
