WESTERN Bulldogs star Ryan Griffen will be given until the very last minute to prove his fitness for Saturday night’s qualifying final against Collingwood.

Griffen did not take part in the Dogs’ main training session at Whitten Oval on Wednesday, but coach Rodney Eade refused to concede he would miss with the knee injury he sustained last week against Essendon.

“We’re still hopeful he’ll play, so we’ll make a decision about an hour and a half before the game starts,” Eade said on Wednesday.

Brad Johnson did take part in the session that was scheduled for the MCG but was moved due to wet conditions in Melbourne.

The skipper is battling to overcome achilles soreness to be fit for the clash, with Wednesday’s hit-out critical to his chances.

“He’ll train today so obviously we’ll see how goes and then how he pulls up,” Eade said.

“He’ll need to get through that reasonably well today and pull up ok to be able to play.”

Ben Hudson, Lindsay Gilbee, Tom Williams and Brian Lake were other notable Bulldogs not to take part in the early part of the session that was closed to the media after 30 minutes.

Despite the selection headaches, Eade is not without options ahead of Thursday’s team announcement.

“Shaun Higgins will probably play, Will Minson will probably replace Jordan Roughead and hopefully Easton Wood will be back, but he needs to get through this session as well,” the coach said.

The Dogs are friendless in the betting market ahead of the match, having also recently lost Adam Cooney and Dale Morris to injury, but Eade said that was of little consequence inside the club.

“Certainly our players know where they’re at and what people think of them, but it’s not a spur,” he said.

“As I’ve said publicly 100 times,  I’m not into that us-against-them mentality. I don’t believe in that or milestones and all that sort of false bravado. If you need that consistently to be able to [perform] then there’s something missing.

“There’s no doubt that we go in with confidence. We know everyone’s written us off and [says] we’re no chance, but certainly internally we’ve got a lot of belief and a lot of confidence that we can do well.”

Eade said it would be dangerous to assess the Pies’ form on the basis of their last two matches where they were pushed hard by Adelaide and fell to the Hawks.

“Collingwood hasn’t had anything to play for over the last two weeks, they’ve had top spot sewn up ... so there’s not the same motivation,” he said.

“I think it’s more about what they’ve been able to do at their best and they’ve certainly played well against us this year, so we’ll have to be ready for that.”

Join the finals conversation on Twitter: use #aflpiesdogs in your tweets.