Craig Bird’s enjoying his AFL too much at Sydney to be daunted by the task of taming Gold Coast superstar Gary Ablett on Sunday.

But the midfielder knows with pleasure, will come pain.

The 25-year-old has shown some of the best form of his career in recent rounds – his performances against Essendon and Geelong helping keep veteran Ryan O’Keefe and Tom Mitchell out of the senior side.

And with injuries behind him and a new contract pending, Bird is flying high.

“The last couple of weeks have been pretty good (for me), much like the team,” Bird said on Friday.

“The last few years I’ve been doing a few different tagging jobs and playing a bit more forward. This year’s been a bit more through the midfield and I’ve enjoyed that role.”

It comes as little surprise, then, the New South Welshman is among a bevy of Swans earmarked by coach John Longmire to help quell the might of Ablett at Metricon Stadium.

“I think as a whole midfield group we’re going to have to watch Gary,” Bird said.

“He’s obviously very hard to stop, we’ve just got to curb his influence as much as we can … and stop him hurting us going forward.”

While confident of extending his side’s winning streak to seven, Bird is wary the Suns’ impressive form this season could threaten their new tag as 2014 premiership favourites.

“We’ve got to make sure we bring that same sort of effort we did (in our 110-point win) last week against Geelong … that work-rate, that pressure,” he added.

“We obviously started the year really slowly, but we’re playing better footy now. We’ve just got to keep building towards the end of the year and make sure we’re playing well at finals time.

“We know Gold Coast is another test and we can’t afford to get too far ahead of ourselves.”