Waratahs coach Bob Dwyer has played down talk of his team making the Super 12 semi-finals after opening with three straight wins.

New South Wales had a woeful record on the road in the competition in 2001, but have turned that around so far this season with all three of their victories coming away from home.

But both Dwyer and his players said on returning to Sydney after the 51-19 win over the Bulls in Pretoria that they are a long way short of qualifying for their first semi-finals series.

"We haven't done anything," captain Matt Burke said. "We've got to put it in perspective, they're the same three teams that we beat last year. We've got three tough games in the coming weeks so we're not getting carried away just yet."

"I think it's great that the fans are happy about what's happening and full of expectation, that's terrific," Dwyer said. "It does place extra pressure on the team but that's good.

"If you want to keep winning than the pressure's going to mount, if you're a winning side you've got to handle that."

But while Dwyer wasn't looking to the semis, he was talking up his belief that the Waratahs still have more improvement in them despite already winning three from three.

"I don't think the guys think we've played particularly well," he said. "We're very happy with the achievements.

"We've had patches, some of our defence against the Stormers was very good, some of our attack against the Bulls was very good but by and large we haven't put a performance together, really.

"We hope we can continue to improve and get some decent results at home now."

Prop Patricio Noriega is tipped to miss several matches after suffering a rib cartilage injury, but Dwyer won't rule him out of the match until late in the lead-up to Saturday's match against the Cats.