Versatile swingman Brian Lake says his latest foray into the Western Bulldogs forward line had more to do with a dodgy hip than it did with any clever strategy to stretch the West Coast Eagles defence.

While Lake’s team-mates savoured a 60 point victory which sees them enter the mid-season break on the back of consecutive wins, Lake was relieved just to have made it out onto Subiaco Oval.

Coach Rodney Eade revealed post-match that Lake had been “lucky to play” after his hip locked-up on Saturday night, forcing him to start in the forward 50 alongside Barry Hall.

Lake said it had been touch and go right up as late as the pre-match warm-up.

“I’ve actually had operations on my right hip but the real worry was that this problem was with my good hip, the one that hasn’t been touched,” Lake said.

“We trained on Saturday and it wasn’t until later that night that it came up reasonably sore. But the medical staff got to work on it and did a fantastic job just to get me out there.

“The body was a little bit restricted so  starting up front just allowed me to get the range and the movement going and the body started feeling just a little bit better. ”

Lake wasn’t given too much time to rest, with West Coast forcing him back into the defensive zone by stacking their forward-line with talls.

“We knew they were going to go in with a tall side and their forwards looked like they could be getting on top,” Lake said.

“They were dropping [Dean] Cox and [Nic] Naitanui in deep in their forward line, so with Tommy Williams out it just forced me to go back there.

“It didn’t help that we were getting beaten early in contested possessions in the midfield so our backline was under the pump a bit.”

With Lake in control, gathering 24 possessions and 11 marks, the Western Bulldogs strangled the West Coast’s momentum only allowing the home side three scoring shots after half-time.

For Lake, the mid-season break means spending a few days in Perth with his young family and his in-laws before returning to training on Friday in preparation for a Round 14 clash with Hawthorn.

“We’ve been playing some good footy without stringing four quarters together,” he said.

“Now we’re building that consistency. Hawthorn will be a tough ask and we’ll have to bring our A-game. But the MCG suits us and the bigger ground allows our midfielders to generate some run and really take it up to them.”