SYDNEY Swans midfielder Jude Bolton says Saturday night’s NAB Challenge game against the Western Bulldogs at Rouse Hill will provide exactly the type of hard-running contest his side needs.

Coach Paul Roos conceded after last weekend’s practice match against Melbourne that the Swans were yet to reach peak fitness, but Bolton said the squad isn’t far away from it following an “interesting” start to the year.

“Obviously we came up against Port Adelaide and they put in a pretty strong side and it showed; they really put us to the sword. It was a better hit-out against Melbourne but still pretty scratchy at the moment,” he said before training on Tuesday.

“[The Bulldogs] are the team that knocked us out of the finals last year. They’re a hard-running side and that’s exactly what we need to get ourselves ready for round one against St Kilda. It’ll be a good challenge."

Bolton agreed with his coach's assessment of the Swans’ level of match fitness with less than four weeks remaining before the season opener against St Kilda at Docklands.

“It is definitely a little bit of an issue. Obviously we’ve done a solid pre-season but match fitness is a little bit different,” the 28-year-old said.

“Sometimes you do all the running in pre-season and you come out in the first practice match and you feel like you’ve done nothing the whole time.

“But I think it’s just more positional running as well and a little bit of accountability as well, so we’ve got to be better at closing down opponents.

“[Saturday night] will be a good chance to see where we’re at and get a full strength side out as much as we can at this time of year, just to try to get a little bit of that synergy and chemistry going together.”

The game, which will be played in north-western Sydney at the newly completed Bruce Purser Reserve in Rouse Hill, will give the Swans a chance to work on new tactics designed to combat the innovative forward zone strategies employed by reigning premier Hawthorn.

“We’ll have learned just watching them in the big games last year, and there are a lot of teams who will adopt [Hawthorn’s] type of zone,” Bolton said.

“We’ve been working a little bit on that over pre-season, so it’ll be good to see how we contend against that.”

Dream Team watch – Jude Bolton is rated a $378,600 midfielder in Toyota AFL Dream Team 2009.