Western Bulldogs coach Luke Beveridge fully expects GWS tagger Matt De Boer to target one of his star midfielders in Saturday’s AFL elimination final.

But just who the hard-nosed former Docker goes after remains anybody’s guess.

De Boer shadowed Marcus Bontempelli when the teams met three weeks ago, however, the Brownlow Medal fancy managed 26 disposals and eight clearances in an influential display as the Dogs dished out a 61-point thrashing.

“We expect him to go to someone,” Beveridge said.

“Whether they try to play that one again and go to Marcus … we’ve been a pretty difficult group to tag.

“Sometimes they’ve gone to (Jack) Macrae, even Dunks (Josh Dunkley) has had some attention at times and Lachie Hunter gets some attention on the wing. We prepare for all those things.

“We’ve got it in the back of our minds. Our players are aware of the possibility and it’s about working through that together, not leaving it to that one individual.”

In a surprise move, GWS have opted to take just one ruckman into the elimination final, naming physical big man Shane Mumford to do battle with Tim English.

The Bulldogs have backed the emerging beanpole to go one-on-one with Mumford, resisting the urge to recall utility Jackson Trengove, who did battle with Dawson Simpson in the teams’s last meeting.

“You’re wise enough to understand that this is going to be totally different (to round 22),” Beveridge said.

“Probably for the first time this year they haven’t got an identifiable back-up ruckman, so that’s an interesting one that we’ve got to work through from a tactical point of view.

“Every week has been about a graduation for Tim and he does a lot of stuff away from the stoppage, so we’ll expect that again, and he’ll give us a good contest in there.

“He’ll do his best to help our mids in there and we’ll work from that.”

Third-year ruckman English is one of 11 Bulldogs players who will be making their finals debuts.