WESTERN Bulldogs coach Rodney Eade says ruckman Ben Hudson is a likely starter in Friday night's second qualifying final against Hawthorn.

The former Crow missed last week with a hamstring strain, and the 29-year-old was one of a number of Bulldogs on reduced workloads at training on Tuesday.

But Eade was confident that his ruckman was the only player with a question mark over his fitness coming into the crucial match.

"Ben is improving, so we're pretty hopeful that he'll play," Eade said from the Whitten Oval on Tuesday morning.

"There's a couple of other guys with [lighter training] today, but Ben's probably the only one that is in some doubt, but we're pretty confident he'll play.

"He will probably have a run tomorrow – we train Thursday, so he'll do a running program tomorrow and he'll train Thursday.

"He was 60-40 yesterday, 70-30 today, probably 80-20 tomorrow, 90-10 Thursday and he'll be 100 per cent Friday.

"He is (important to us) – certainly on the weekend, he would have been great in those sort of conditions.

"His form for us ... he's probably tapered off the last four or five weeks that he's played for us, but certainly when we're playing well he's an integral part of that."

Fellow tall Will Minson trained away from the main group, but Eade said he was certain to play.

"We've had a fairly heavy training load for the last few weeks for Will, and he did most of the ruck on the weekend because Ben didn't play, but it's just a matter of what we think is best for his fitness to get up on the weekend.