HAWTHORN forward Stuart Dew says the club is not panicking despite a winless start to the season.

The Hawks are winless after two rounds following an upset loss to the Sydney Swans on Saturday night.

But Dew said the team would simply focus on this week’s game against North Melbourne.

“No one wants to start with two losses but all we can do is look forward to this week and try to get a win on the board. We don’t want to get too down. It’s a long season,” Dew said.

“We’ve played two quality sides in Geelong and Sydney and we’ve been beaten because we weren’t good enough. Everyone’s out to beat everyone and no one goes into games taking it easy these days, it’s too professional.

“We don’t want to look too far ahead and think we can play catch-up. We want to get as many wins on the board as possibly. We’d like to be 2-0 but that’s not the case. We want to get a win as soon as possible.”

Hawthorn has one of the worst injury lists in the competition, but defender Stephen Gilham and midfielder Brad Sewell are expected to return for the clash with the Kangaroos, while Robbie Campbell remains some chance to play.

But defender Trent Croad remains out with a foot injury after having more semi-related surgery last week. Croad's initial injury was a broken foot but last week he also had bone spurs removed from near his ankle.

"He’ll play this year. It’s not really a setback. His return date is still unknown due to the other injury,” Dew said.

“This one is very minor, just a bit of maintenance. If he was playing we probably wouldn’t do anything about it but because he’s not playing it is a chance to get things fixed.”

“He’s such an important player to the side, as is Stephen Gilham. If most teams lost their two key backmen they would look a bit undersized.”

Dew said while the injury list was extensive, it was not catastrophic.

“Last year we had guys miss patches throughout the year. Seeing as there are a few all at once it looks worse than it is. We’d like to think we’d be able to manage those through the rest of the year and they’ll be able to play a similar amount of game time as they did last year.”