WESTERN Bulldogs coach Rodney Eade has not ruled out making changes to the side that will take on the West Coast Eagles this weekend if his players struggle to recover in a shortened week.

The Dogs played Richmond on Easter Monday and now face their second trip to Perth in four weeks.

Eade said the club would focus heavily on recovery this week and would pick a team based on how the players pulled up.

"We'll see how the players recover," Eade said. "We've got a few tests we do to test their recovery.

"Certainly if they haven't recovered leg-wise we won't take them.

"At this stage they seem to have recovered well, which is pleasing. The interesting one will be the week after we fly back."

The Bulldogs will make at least one change with Brownlow Medallist Adam Cooney to miss after having a successful knee clean-out on Tuesday.

Eade said the operation went "as expected" and believed the midfielder would be available for round five, along with forward Robert Murphy.

Murphy will play for Williamstown this weekend after overcoming his own knee issues.

Eade said while the Dogs' first month had been challenging, it evened out with many teams being asked to back up after short breaks and playing in summer-like conditions.

"It's a tough ask but it's the same as West Coast last week. They played in 35 degree heat, had a six-day break and had to fly to Melbourne," he said.

"Unfortunately it's the vagaries of the draw. It's not ideal but the players seem to recover reasonably well and it's going to be warm there as well, so that's another thing we have to deal with.

"It's not ideal when you're playing in warm weather and it will be interesting how Fremantle and Adelaide cope with it this week with six-day breaks after playing in 32 degree heat."

He said the Eagles had "heavy legs" against St Kilda last weekend because of their previous Subiaco game, but won't be reading much into their lacklustre performance.

"You don't take a lot of notice of last week. You take notice of their best form in the first two games when they played very well," he said.

Eade also took time to stand up for former Hawthorn teammate Terry Wallace, who has been the focus of media scrutiny this week after the Tigers' disastrous 0-3 start to the season.
 
Melbourne newspaper the Herald Sun ran the headline of "Wallace on Death Row" on Tuesday, which Eade said was an overreaction.

"It's unfortunate the people who make the headlines sit in a room at the back office and nobody sees them, and they can do that and have no accountability," he said.

"It's not the person writing the story; they write content and it's just unfortunate about the people in the back room.

"I'd certainly like to see them write the same headlines about their family. That would be good."