Caleb Daniel has settled into life in the back line, and is confident the team’s defensive structure can help cover the loss of veteran Dale Morris.

Daniel, who spent time on a half-back flank last year, has played there in both of the Dogs’ JLT Community Series matches and had an impact.

“I’ve really enjoyed it,” the 22-year-old said.

“Spending a little bit of time down there last year was a good pre-cursor to what has unfolded during the pre-season, where I’ve spent the majority of my time playing along that half-back flank.”

He’s expecting significant improvement on the team’s practice matches, and a tight contest against Sydney in Saturday night’s season opener.

“We’ve taken some things that we didn’t do so well (in the practice matches), and worked on them in the last couple of weeks at training, but we’ve got to look at some positives as well,” Daniel said.

“The way we were able to hunt the footy and different things like that was great.

“I think everyone’s looking forward to (round one), and we’re really optimistic about the year.

“I know we’ve had some really tight tussles with them.

“They’re a great team as well, so I’m looking forward to running out there with 21 of my mates and hopefully putting on a good show and getting the win for us.”

The Bulldogs will be without key defender Dale Morris due to injury, but Daniel is confident the team’s defensive structure can hold up.

“It’s obviously really disappointing for Moz, going down with the same thing he had last year. But someone so resilient and hard-working, I have no doubt I’ll see him running around again with us and it’ll be great when he does,” Daniel said.