The Western Bulldogs key defensive positions were firmly up for grabs coming into this season, and 14 weeks in, nothing has changed.

With Jordan Roughead and Joel Hamling succumbing to minor injuries, Michael Talia has been called upon to fill the void, after a run of good form in the VFL.

Talia will join Dale Morris, and Fletcher Roberts — who this week signed a new contract extension with the Club — as the key defenders to nullify some of the tall firepower in the Gold Coast side, including Charlie Dixon, who kicked seven goals last week.

Luke Beveridge lauded the key backs’ efforts this year in what has been a big driver of the Dogs’ revival this season.

"Those young boys you’ve just mentioned (Talia, Roberts and Hamling) have really come on this year, our back end has really held up tremendously well. That holds us in good stead for the future,” Beveridge said.

"Tal’s played some really good footy at the start of the year. He stood some of the best forwards in the game and that experience will help him this week… we expect him to play well.”

The Bulldogs have moved to seventh position on the ladder and a game clear in the eight, yet it won’t change Beveridge’s view on how he will attack the remainder of the season.

"There’s too much left in the season to be thinking about anything else but beating the Gold Coast this weekend,” Beveridge said.

"I think I said last week that the consideration of where you might end up at the end of the year is always out there in the abyss and everyone thinks about it, we do, but we just need to earn that right and we haven’t yet."

Over the past three weeks, the Bulldogs have kept their opposition to under ten goals per game, showing a capacity to play ultra defensively where necessary, and while Beveridge acknowledges those efforts, he doesn’t want his chargers to neglect their attacking flair.

“We’d like to score a little bit more,” Beveridge said.

“It’s a credit to the two sides we’ve played the last couple of weeks, but in the end we’ve kept a couple of teams to really low scores on a really fast deck of Etihad Stadium and that’s a great sign for us that our defensive mechanisms are really holding up well."

Beveridge said his first foray as coach up north in Cairns comes at a good time, but will be met with a big challenge in the talented Gold Coast Suns side.

"We’re preparing for that environment, the players are really looking forward to it. It’s probably a good thing in the Melbourne winter that we get away and get out into a warmer climate,” Beveridge said.

“Gary [Ablett] was very good last week and they’ll have a bit of a spring in their step, with a pretty impressive win, so we won’t be taking them lightly."