It was still to be confirmed on Wednesday but Bulldogs coach Doug Meagher expects captain Ben Maher and Brent Hartley to come back into the side after being away for their opening round win over the Tamworth Kangaroos.

He is also hoping Andrew George will be right to play.

"There's three pretty handy footballers," he said.

They will however be without best-on-ground against the Kangaroos Scott Hardy. He has his sisters wedding.

Meagher is expecting "a very tough game" with the Swans showing they are going to be a real force this season with a 144 point demolition of the Narrabri Eagles.

The Bulldogs met the Swans in the final of last month's Crossroads Cup, and just got over the line courtesy of a behind in the final seconds from Jacob Spackman.

New to the area it was Meagher's first real sighting of the Bulldogs second round opponents, but enough to predict them to be one of the top sides this season.

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He was pretty happy with what he saw from his side against the Kangaroos, especially the way they responded after the Tamworth side cut their 24 point half-time lead down to five points early in the third term, and spoke about just "Improving on what we did last week".

"We need to improve our ground ball get, we were a bit fumbly," he said.

Their goalkicking was also a bit wayward at times.

"We kicked two goals, 10 on the weekend in the last quarter," Meagher said.

"We had plenty of possession but we just rushed."

It's about being a bit more patient when they get the ball up front.