CHRIS Dawes says he expects Melbourne to defeat Hawthorn at the MCG on Saturday – and in the process help his team notch up its first win over the brown and gold since 2006 and end an 11-game losing streak.

Although Dawes is working hard to play this round, due to a niggling calf complaint, he said the Demons now go into every match believing they can win.

“The thing we’ve found is that playing against good opposition, you’ve got to respect them without bowing to them – you can’t give them too much respect, if that makes sense,” he told Dee TV.

“We’ve still got to go out there and beat them – and plan to beat them.

“The Hawks are really gettable. They’re not at their best yet, definitely, so I’m going to be planning to win this week and be expecting to win on Saturday.”

Meanwhile, Dawes said young-gun teammate Jesse Hogan had impressed him in his first six AFL matches, since the Western Australian made his debut in round one.

“He’s been good. His first four weeks in particular have been really good, with the way he’s competing,” he said.

“The good thing about Jesse is that he’s rarely beaten and even when he’s not having as big an impact as what he’d like, he’ll still hitting the scoreboard a couple of times.

“And you can still trust him to compete.”

 Reflecting on Melbourne’s first six rounds, Dawes said it had been a “frustrating” and “pretty disappointing” start to the season.

“The good thing is the boys had a really good win in round one and we were good that Friday night against the Tiges, but other than that, we’ve been pretty disappointing,” he said.

“That shouldn’t dishearten people – it should just reflect that we’ve raised our standards now.

“We expect to be better.”