Western Bulldogs forward Aaron Naughton will have scans on Friday for a suspected strained neck after an unsettling landing on Thursday night.<\/p>\n
Naughton crashed hard to the ground after flying for a mark during the Bulldogs\u2019 66-point loss to Sydney at Marvel Stadium.<\/p>\n
The Bulldogs spearhead was stretchered from the ground during the third quarter but coach Luke Beveridge said he was free to go home after the match.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s going to go home now and he\u2019ll have his neck looked at tomorrow, we\u2019ll get back to you on that,\u201d Beveridge said.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe appears to have strained down that side of his neck from the incident or occurrence.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe bright side is there\u2019s no sign of concussion but we\u2019ll have to report in once we get something more definitive from a scan.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Naughton setback comes after Sam Darcy succumbed to an ACL injury in the heavy loss to Geelong last week.<\/p>\n
Beveridge said the Bulldogs had been challenged in personnel, but were also overwhelmed in pressure and execution.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s been an interesting couple of weeks of that, hasn\u2019t it?\u201d Beveridge said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think there\u2019s a disparity in many things in the game tonight. We started off the game in good fashion and the things we spoke about beforehand came to the fore.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs the night went on, we probably needed our more experienced players really influencing the game, obviously Marcus (Bontempelli) was (but) we didn\u2019t have enough elsewhere.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe younger guys came up to speed a little bit but (Sydney) were just more vibrant: their speed, their work across the ground.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey pressured us into aspects of the game you don\u2019t want to be accustomed to, it turned really, really ugly for us.<\/p>\n
\u201cFifteen back-half turnovers in that last quarter we gave up, that\u2019s just a world record and that\u2019s skill, that\u2019s composure, it\u2019s fatigue, it\u2019s many things.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have to work through that together and remain optimistic.\u201d<\/p>\n
Beveridge said the back half turnovers in part allowed Charlie Curnow (seven goals) as many opportunities as he did.<\/p>\n
\u201cCurnow was quite exceptional one-on-one, none of our backs could stop him from marking those contested marks which is disappointing,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe think we should be better than that but he had obviously a very influential game.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Bulldogs have little time to waste correcting their three-match losing streak as they host the red-hot Fremantle next week.<\/p>\n