“Flinch too often”: Beveridge implores AFL patience with new ruck rules

Western Bulldogs coach Luke Beveridge says he is "not paranoid about PCL injuries" in the ruck when probed about whether he'd avoid using Sam Darcy in centre ball-ups.

The new ruck rules have all but forced ruckmen to jump at one another to contest the ball-up, and already caused concern when Geelong's Shannon Neale injured his shin last week, albeit on the minor end.

Beveridge said the AFL tends to "flinch too often" when faced with scrutiny regarding its laws of the game, and stated the only "headache" at Whitten Oval is whether players use shin pads or not.

"I'm not paranoid about PCL injuries," Beveridge said on Thursday.

"One of the practical challenges is the lads going in there are weighing up whether or not to put a shin pad on.

"When you're playing as a key forward, or a key defender, because we used 'Lobby' a bit last year as a ruckman as well, you don't want to be running around with a shin pad if you don't need to.

"That's the only headache it's caused. I'm not concerned about the other stuff.

"I've said it to the AFL before, they've flinched too often in the past where something's happened and they've just changed it.

"You need a pattern of things to happen for consideration of changing again. We just started with it. Players will get injured. They'll get injured all around the ground.

"We've got three or four players in our team that we'll ask to ruck at different times, and they could all end up at (a) centre bounce and I'd say only two of them would have shin pads on. That's the only consideration for mine."

The Bulldogs will have a new look defence against Brisbane, with the club confirming two debutants, Lachie Jaques and Michael Sellwood, while Connor Budarick will make his club debut.

"All three in the backline. Three out of seven," Beveridge said.