THE Giants are no longer AFL "kids" and will have no excuses when they face a revitalised and hungry Melbourne outfit, says forward Devon Smith.

Greater Western Sydney is fancied to come out on top against the Demons in Saturday's top-eight clash and seal its best start to a season after a round one win over St Kilda.

Melbourne is the only team the Giants have defeated more than once, having emerged victorious in their past three encounters.

But Smith is not expecting a fourth consecutive win over the Victorian side to come as easily as some might expect, especially given the Giants have not won a game at Canberra's StarTrack Oval since 2012.

The 21-year-old said the Demons' upset 26-point victory over Gold Coast, in which they took an opening-round high 16 contested marks, had not gone unnoticed in coach Leon Cameron's camp this week.

He also believes their opposition will have their 64-point humiliation by the Giants at the MCG late last season fresh in their memories.

"They're obviously going to be a lot better side than when we played them last year," Smith told AAP on Friday.

"Last year their confidence was down ... now they've had a win, and with some new players I think their confidence is up."

They will be hungry – the clash presents Melbourne with an opportunity to register its first 2-0 start to a season in a decade.

The Demons will field the same new-look squad as last Saturday including key West Australian forward Jesse Hogan, who impressed in his long-awaited debut against the Suns with two goals, seven marks and 15 touches.

Smith said the more mature Giants could no longer view themselves as the AFL's babies and needed to focus on holding their nerve against the bigger clubs.

"The boys have now played 50-60 games and are third-year, fourth-year players and obviously there's experience added," he said.

"I think there's no more real excuses that we're kids anymore."

Melbourne coach Paul Roos said it would be important his players backed up last Saturday's performance.

"What you're hoping as a coach is that the players get some belief out of that," he said.

"We just want to try and follow up with form and hopefully become a consistent team that plays a certain brand of footy for longer than we did last year."

Melbourne has made room for Chris Dawes (suspension) and Bernie Vince (hamstring), dropping Jimmy Toumpas and Jay Kennedy-Harris. GWS has made only one change from round one, bringing in forward Nathan Wilson for Curtly Hampton.

Giants midfielder Tomas Bugg will also play after being cleared of wrongdoing by the match review panel over his bump on St Kilda captain Nick Riewoldt.