This is the second match on the road to start the season after the Bushrangers travelled to Cowra for their opener last week, and a chance for the Bathurst team to right the wrongs of their opening half of football from that game against the Blues.

"Last year we didn't come up against a very strong Dubbo team. They do have a couple of individuals in there who can spoil your day.

"If it comes to that we'll start spot marking them and try to get them off their game," co-coach Brett Archer said.

"They'll be a better side this time. They've got some players back and they'll be getting cheered on at home."

There's little to read from the Bushrangers after just the one match but enough for Archer to see there's plenty to get right.

"We've got off to slow starts before in first grade and it's a bit concerning. We want that out of the way before we play Orange in a couple of weeks' time," he said.

"To Cowra's credit they played well in that first half. Our passing was off and we got knocked off the ball a bit more than we should have. If we don't learn from that we'll get punished."

Some absences will force some rotations for the Bushrangers but it's something that Archer says his side is always prepared well for.

"We've got Tom Markey, Tom Reagan and Matt Griffith out and that's three big names for us. Luckily we've got around 30 players to pick from every week and there's a couple of ressies guys really pushing for a spot," he said.

"Jack Allors had a really good game there last week and could find his way into first grade. There's also guys like Campbell Martin coming back.

"We've still got a lot of fresh blood coming through. We had two new guys turn up this week. We had about 50 guys at training which is probably the best we've had since early last year. We've been running some of the younger guys around to try and get them up to that first grade level."