Sydney defender Nick Malceski and his fleet-footed cohorts are hoping they can help counter-act Hawthorn's two-headed monster at ANZ Stadium on Saturday night.

The Swans face a tough task against the reigning AFL premiers, who have threats all over the ground but none more so than their twin towers up front, Buddy Franklin and Jarryd Roughead.

The pair tallied nine goals and 14 marks between them in their eight-point loss to Geelong last week and will need to be shutdown if the Swans are to rebound from their uninspiring round one loss to St Kilda.

After a strong opening term, Sydney were held goalless for two quarters against the Saints at Etihad Stadium to leave them searching for answers heading into round two.

Malceski believes part of the key to beating Hawthorn is feeding off the scraps as the Hawks bomb the ball into their forward line, then trying to quickly rebound and set up Sydney's forwards, led by Barry Hall.

"We looked through the (St Kilda) game on Tuesday morning and went through the points we wanted to work on this week," Malceski said on Thursday.

"We'd like to get a bit more run in our legs and use the ball a bit better and hopefully we do that this Saturday night.

"We're hoping to get a bit more run through our defence.

"Hopefully our bigger defenders take down the ball and myself and Marty (Mattner) and Rhyce (Shaw) if he's down there can run it out and get a bit more run through the midfield with all our other midfielders pushing back in defence."

While the Hawks are obviously genuine threats at back-to-back flags, the heat is on the Swans to prove they're not a spent force after six straight seasons making the finals.

Malceski believes there is no better test of their credentials than welcoming the premiers to the harbour city.

"We showed some good signs in the first quarter and hopefully we can take that through four quarters and take us closer to winning games," he said. "The boys are all upbeat.

"Obviously Hawthorn winning it last year it's going to be a tough game this week but we're looking forward to the challenge.

"They played well against Geelong and we only played good for a quarter and a bit so we're looking to improve on that and hopefully have a good game on Saturday night.

"No team wants to start 0-2. Obviously you want to win your first game and we weren't able to do that last week.

"So we're looking forward to a good hit-out this week against the reigning premiers to see where we're at."

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