WESTERN Bulldogs coach Luke Beveridge has confirmed key forward Aaron Naughton will play against West Coast, having overcome a rib injury.

Naughton was subbed out of the Dogs' heartbreaking loss to Geelong after colliding with Jed Bews when contesting a ball on the half-time siren.

"He's good, he recovered really well," Beveridge said.

"He had a scan quickly after the game and thankfully that came up all clear. He's trained and he'll play on Sunday, he'll be fine."

Josh Schache is on standby as the sole tall emergency, with the Dogs having only taken an additional three players (Ed Richards and Riley Garcia the others) to the 23 who took on the Cats.

The team has been staying in Joondalup this week, able to leave only for training at WAFL club West Perth and Optus Stadium, as well as the game itself. They'll return to Melbourne immediately after the match against the Eagles on Sunday.

Beveridge said the Bulldogs were wary of the impact in-form ruck Nic Naitanui could have on the match, considering his strong finish to the match against Richmond and the fact the Dogs only have one recognised ruck in Tim English.

Stef Martin did not make the trip to Perth, finishing his recovery from a shoulder issue, but Beveridge said has since picked up a groin complaint at training.

"We've just got to be smart about it from a coaching point of view. You don't concede, but you understand where the vulnerability might be. We've watched him tear apart other really experienced ruckmen, so you expect Nic will have a big influence on the game at the stoppages," Beveridge said.

"I thought he finished off his game as well as he has all year against Richmond, and he played more game time in that last quarter than perhaps what we've seen. 

"So, we understand what we're coming up against, we'll need to organise ourselves and be ready for the stoppage aspect, then away from that, we need to work out where we'll get our advantages and how we support Tim in the ruck. 

"We saw what Max Gawn did to us against Melbourne with young 'Sweety' (Jordon Sweet), who's still learning the caper, we've got to make some decisions around that position at selection and see where we can get some advantages elsewhere. 

"So unfortunately, we're probably where we were last year with all that, at the moment, not ideal, but we just have to tackle it."