Swans coach Paul Roos said the key backman would resume his place in the side after a week out provided he trained well at the SCG on Thursday afternoon.
Rugged midfielder Craig Bird is the most likely candidate to make way for Roberts-Thomson after suffering concussion in the Swans’ 55-point win against Port Adelaide last weekend.
Roos said it was tough to drop players after such an impressive performance but he preferred to be spoiled for choice, rather than the alternative.
“It’s hard for the particular player. In the end, it comes down to match-ups and health,” he said before training.
“One of the good things we’ve been able to do in the past two or three weeks is put a good, healthy team on the field and that makes a big difference.
“We’ve just got to determine that Lewie is fit and ready to go, and then determine who we leave out of the team.”
Roos said much had been made of Bulldogs’ outside midfielders but opposition teams ignored their strong ball-winners at their peril.
“I think they’re No.1 in clearances and they’re also high up in contested footy,” he said.
“They’ve really been a very good side inside as well, so we’ve got to match them inside and outside. That’s what made them such a good team last year and they got back to that last week, and particularly in the last quarter.
“They beat us three times last year and we’ll see how much we’ve bridged the gap.”
Jared Crouch, who kept Power star Peter Burgoyne quiet last weekend in his first game since round three, is likely to resume his tussles with in-form Dogs veteran Jason Akermanis.
“They’ve played on each other a lot so they know each other’s games really well. There won’t be too many surprises between the two of them,” Roos said.
“Crouchy played really well last week which was really important for him to go in against Aker, because Aker’s in really good form.”
Another Swans veteran, Leo Barry, is making progress in his recovery from pre-season knee surgery and Roos said the defender was on track to resume playing after the split round.
“[Leo] won’t play in the seconds this week and we’ll just make sure he gets as much training time as possible,” he said.
“Hopefully he’s on track for the week after the bye, but we’ll monitor him on a weekly basis.”
