Breathe easy Bulldogs fans, your premiership defence is off to an impressive start and Sonny Bill Williams could be fit for the NRL club's next premiership game against North Queensland in Townsville.

The defending premiers stormed to a 46-28 win over St George Illawarra before a club-record crowd of 33,105 at Telstra Stadium, opening their title defence with an exhilarating first 40 minutes.

The only downside was a knee injury suffered by wonderboy Williams and a calf strain which forced prop Mark O'Meley to watch the second half from the sidelines.

O'Meley could miss four to six weeks but Williams, who suffered a grade one medial ligament strain, declared himself a chance of playing against the Cowboys at Dairy Farmers Stadium on Friday night.

"A couple of blokes were around my legs and I just got caught under the tackle and twisted the wrong way," said the 19-year-old New Zealander, who tormented the Dragons in his 31 minutes on the field.

"When I did it I just thought the worst. I wanted to get off and check it straight away. Obviously when ... the doc said it was only a grade one I wanted to get back out there.

"I missed a couple of tackles early on and I wanted to stay out there and work on defence.

"But the boys were going so well."

They were cruising thanks to their first half.

The Bulldogs raced out of the blocks, scoring five tries inside the game's opening 40 minutes to lead 28-0 at the break.

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