DUAL Hawthorn premiership defender Taylor Duryea is getting back to full fitness and form, finally putting a wretched start to the season behind him.

And with Paul Puopolo missing from the side once again as the Hawks prepare to play Greater Western Sydney on Saturday, he looks likely to reprise the negating small forward role he successfully played on Collingwood's Jeremy Howe last week.

Duryea verballed and niggled Howe all afternoon and also kicked a couple of goals himself. It was a different, but effective role for the erstwhile backman.

"I was just trying to disturb him and whenever I could take away from the contest that was good," he told AFL.com.au.

He could have added to his goal tally as well with two behinds to go with his two majors.

"My eyes lit up and I lost a bit of composure," he said with a laugh.

The 26-year-old could be assigned to Heath Shaw, with a similar brief to disrupt the Giants playmaker.

"They're a very good team," he said when discussing the top of the ladder team.

Duryea played in the season opener against Essendon – and struggled – before disappearing entirely from the side for several weeks as he dealt with a knee injury.

"I was out of form and the body wasn't great with a few fitness issues. So, I had a few weeks off completely to take a step back and get the knee completely right," he said.

"It was sort of a mini pre-season but I went back to square one to get some quad strength and knee strength and get it back to a level where I could function with some power. Then I had to get some VFL footy under my belt and play as well as I could at that level."

Duryea has now played the past six games, a period that has coincided with the Hawks playing some of their best football of the year. At 6-8 they just remain in finals contention.

"It came back to working on what we could, ignoring the uncontrollables and we have had a few results go our way by sticking to the process," he said.

And watching from the other end of the ground last week he was able to enjoy some of the work of his emerging backline colleagues such as Ryan Burton, Kaiden Brand, Blake Hardwick and Kurt Heatherley.

"You can either slowly blood young guys or as you have seen the last few weeks, throw them in there and hope they can gel at once," he said.

"They’ve been great, and have really accepted their roles and taken it head on.

"Best of all, they have backed themselves and have really started to come into their own and make the positions their own."