ON THE eve of Brent Harvey's 250th game, his coach Dean Laidley has predicted the rover will end his career as one of the club's greats but the milestone won't be part of the coach's motivational armoury against the in-form Dogs this Sunday.

The Kangaroos have beaten the Bulldogs in the past three encounters but Laidley heaped praise on his rivals yesterday, saying the undefeated Bulldogs had matured as an outfit recently.

"They're up and running. All their very best players have got good form and their fitness is very good, so it's completely different to probably the last two maybe three times we've played them," Laidley said.

"They're more mature now, they've played more games of football, they're a little bit more seasoned and the stars are certainly aligning for them.

"They're gelling well, their senior players are still playing good footy, but some players who have been there for three, four, five and six years now are really taking over the mantle and they've got a real look about them."

Laidley said the Roos would need defensive pressure all over the ground to counter the attacking Bulldogs and believed his team had shown the necessary attributes in their win against West Coast last week.

"I thought particularly after half-time our contested ball was terrific. I think we had 74 or 75 tackles, and we're going to need to do that on the weekend against the Bulldogs," he said.

Harvey, a three-time best-and-fairest winner during Laidley's reign at Arden Street and a member of the 1999 premiership side, will become the eighth player in the history of the club to reach the milestone.

"He has really rounded off his game in the last 18 months," Laidley said. "By the time he has finished playing he will be one of the all-time greats, certainly at this football club and of the league."

At 172 centimetres, Harvey is one of the competition's smallest players but Laidley said it was never an issue. "He looks like a jockey but he is a very, very good player and he is a very smart player."

Kangaroos rookie Alan Obst was forced to take the long route home from Carrara after puncturing a lung and breaking several ribs just minutes into his first match last Saturday night.

Despite the car trip home from the Gold Coast and spending his 21st birthday in hospital, Obst was upbeat about his experience yesterday, saying he was hoping to return to senior football by the end of the season.

"It wasn't a dream start, really, for a debut. I got a knee to the back of the ribs and I was pretty sore. I kind of fought out the first quarter and then I was just no good," he said.

Obst said the roller-coaster ride had initially made him think about his future in football. "I was thinking, maybe footy's not for me — but we're good now, we'll be back in a couple of weeks."