Bulldogs star BACK for Friday night blockbuster with Cats

https://www.foxsports.com.au/afl/bul...0b0f95e0c9e867

Western Bulldogs superstar Bailey Smith has declared himself a certain starter for his side’s blockbuster clash with Geelong at Marvel Stadium on Friday night.

Smith was forced out of the Dogs’ 101-point mauling of West Coast at Optus Stadium on the weekend after suffering a serious bout of the flu.

“I’m fine. I just had the flu during the week, it was so bad, it knocked me for six,” Smith told Fox Sports.

“I did a session this morning so will be perfect for Friday.

“Geelong will be a big one, so (it was) annoying I missed on the weekend.

“I’m very keen to get back out there.”

After hammering West Coast, the Dogs entered the top eight for the first time this season, and they trail the sixth-placed Cats by just one game.

A fourth victory in a row could see the Bulldogs replace Geelong in sixth spot and with important players Tim English, Cody Weightman and Taylor Duryea returning to the side last week, as well as his own imminent return, Smith was excited at how the team’s season was starting to take shape following a slow start to the year.

“The team is coming back together, we’ve had lots of injuries and it’s been frustrating and it’s good to get some more experience in and proper personnel in again,” Smith said.

“We’ve had lots of boys step up which has been exciting but it’s also good to get our strong team back.”

Smith admitted he wasn’t as confident about his side’s premiership prospects this year as he was last year, but stressed his team loomed a “scary” proposition for fellow top-eight contenders in the second half of the season.

“I feel like we have realised the potential we have so it is exciting, it’s just about showing it,” he said.

“Now that we’ve got three wins under our belt, you start to feel it a bit more and I think it’s a scary thing for the other sides in the comp because once we get going, we can be hard to stop, especially with ‘Brucey’ (Josh Bruce) coming back soon, it’s just exciting, so we’re very keen.”

The Dogs’ clash with the Cats will be their last game before their bye, and Smith will begin his mid-season break by being ringside at the massive lightweight unification championship fight between Australia’s George Kambosos and America’s Devin Haney at Marvel Stadium on Sunday.

Smith was an interested onlooker at Monday’s heated press conference between the two adversaries which featured numerous insults and finished off with a staredown that lasted minutes.

“That was intense that little face-off there, they couldn’t separate them for a bit,” Smith said.

Smith joked that AFL coaches should go head-to-head in similarly fiery press conferences.

“‘Bevo’ (Dogs coach Luke Beveridge) would just run straight through them I reckon, he’s still fit as a fiddle, he’d go alright,” Smith said.

“It would be nice, ‘Bevo’ and a few journalists would be good – even a few players would be good.”

And while Smith laughed that he did have “a few” opposition players he would like to engage with in a press conference like that, he stopped short of divulging.

“I can’t say,” he smiled.

As for the fight itself, Smith was hoping for a Kambosos victory, but anticipated a close contest.