Western Bulldogs coach Luke Beveridge has lauded the way his side responded in their round two win over Gold Coast in Ballarat.

The Bulldogs put a disappointing season-opener behind them with a 48-point triumph over the surging Suns on Sunday.

Beveridge said it was a pleasing outcome.

“There was just a disconnect between most things we we're doing last week – we played against a pretty good side in Melbourne and they just got across the ground better than us,” Beveridge said in his post-match press conference.

“We felt that we really defended a lot better as a group (today) – there was some exciting ball use and obviously we were able to convert.

“We haven't done so well in recent times where we’ve lost a player either, especially an important backman. When Nick Coffield went off, for Bailey Williams to go back and cover, he played a really important role and everything else remained stable so that was good for us.

“We intercepted well and I think there’s no doubt we had a lot more pressure around the footy - the combat from our inside mids was quite extraordinary at times.”

Beveridge also said it was great to be rewarded for the early pre-season work.

“We were pretty firm on not throwing the toys out on one disappointing experience. We felt like we’ve had a really strong pre-season and the outings against Hawthorn gave us evidence that we had,” he said.

“We walked away from the MCG last week a little bit disconcerted and didn’t want to search too far for different things.

“There were a number of things coming out of last year that we’ve really worked on over the pre-season, which didn’t come to the fore last week.

“To see some of (those things) be more prevalent in our game today was great.”

The Bulldogs will need to cover both Coffield (shoulder) and Ed Richards (concussion) in this weekend’s Easter Sunday clash against West Coast – the only dampeners to an otherwise positive outing.