Coach Michael Sargeant confirmed on Friday the 23-year-old would join the returning Dom Kenna (back soreness) in the Bloods' best 21 to take on Hamilton Kangaroos at Melville Oval on Saturday.

Samuel Crawley and Dylan Jones were both omitted due to work commitments.

Sargeant praised the hard yards O'Connor had put in to get his senior call up.

"First and foremost he has been training harder than anyone else during the summer," he said.

"His form in the twos in the middle of the ground and on a wing has been pretty good and he'll give us an extra rotation in the midfield."

The Bloods enter the match in ninth place after suffering four straight defeats to start season 2019.

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But Sargeant was confident his side could turn its fortunes around against the Kangaroos, who have two wins and two losses.

"I'm starting to see the improvement and we're going up there with the hope we can come home with the points," he said.

"We have a good record over them the last few years and we match up well against them.

"Their side has changed around with Levi (Dare) coming in and they structure differently to the past.

"But we have a good understanding of them and we're going to give it a good go."

Sargeant said the Bloods' three-pronged ruck attack of Lachlan Wareham, Stephen Staunton and Matt Arundell would share the load against Dare.

"They'll all go through the ruck at some stage and they can all play forward," he said. "Depending on who is playing well in each position we will leave them there longer.

"It's a floating rotation and once someone is getting cold in the forward line we get one of the others into the ruck for five to ten minutes and vice versa."

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