GREATER Western Sydney will learn plenty about itself battling Melbourne on Sunday, coach Adam Kingsley says, as it searches for its biggest scalp of the season to date.
While sitting 6-8 and just a game outside finals contention, five of the Giants' six wins have come against current bottom 10 sides with their competitiveness against the competition's elite still in question.
They haven't beaten a top-eight side since round one, a 16-point triumph against Adelaide where they stormed home after trailing for most of the game.
Off a 70-point thrashing of Fremantle - comfortably their biggest win of the campaign - Kingsley admitted battling the fourth-ranked Demons would be a different task altogether.
"We're playing well, the key stats we track are going our way particularly over the last month," he said.
"But Melbourne are a different team, they're obviously a top three or four team at the moment, stars across the field, really strong defensively.
"It's a great challenge, I really look forward to the game to just give us a bit of a measure of who we actually are."
Running defender Nick Haynes will return to the side from an ankle niggle and power forward Jesse Hogan is fit after a calf complaint, although Kingsley wouldn't commit to recalling him to the side after posting their biggest score of the year.
Veteran defender Phil Davis is also fit after a calf injury, although he's set to return via the VFL.
The Giants will be another team looking to stop a poor record for teams coming off byes against opponents who were active the week before, that mark sitting at 0-8 for the year.
Kingsley said a higher-intensity Monday training session was designed to get the players back in game mode early in the week and address any lethargy from the week off.
"Our guys attacked it with the (right) mindset and certainly physically we got exactly what we wanted," he said.
"We'll treat it as though we needed a hard hitout off that bye weekend and then try and stay in the groove come game time.
"Clearly the stats are suggesting it's difficult to win off the bye - impossible to win off the bye when you look at the stats, 0-8.
"We're hoping to buck that trend and I feel like we'll prepare as well as we can and it will come down to who's the best team on the day."
