FREMANTLE coach Justin Longmuir says it is clear opponents are hunting his team early in games, challenging his players to match the energy of a West Coast group that is out to take a "scalp" in Friday night's Western Derby.
The Dockers have trailed at half-time in four of their past five games as teams, including Port Adelaide last Saturday, put a heavy emphasis on early pressure and contest work to try and get an edge over the ladder leaders.
While Freo has been able to turn games repeatedly with powerful goal-scoring bursts, Longmuir said it was important that the group was switched on and ready for opponents to hunt them early in games.
"You don't sneak under anyone's radar when you're where we are on the ladder, so we spoke about that and spoke about the need to make sure we match teams, especially early," Longmuir said on Tuesday.
"They (West Coast) have already said that they want to come out and take a scalp.
"So we've read that into their mindset and we'll prepare for their best and go out there and try and improve our footy.
"We need to understand that teams are going to be really physical against us and not give us what we want, so there's nothing wrong with making it a scrap at times. We've just got to embrace that part of the game."
Fremantle matched Port in overall clearances (36-36) but was convincingly beaten in the centre square (9-18), losing that indicator for the third time in four weeks after Greater Western Sydney (10-15) and Gold Coast (7-8) each edged them in the middle.
It shapes as an important part of the game in Friday night's Western Derby 63, with West Coast star Harley Reid in excellent form after racking up 10 clearances from his 23 disposals against Brisbane last Saturday night.
"Their clearance and centre bounce work has come a long way. They go contest to contest, their work rate's really strong and they force teams into a chaotic brand of footy," Longmuir said.
"So there's no secrets that when you play West Coast you need to be strong in the contest and you need to be able to buffer their pressure. We've already put a bit of time into that.
"We feel like it's one of our strengths, but it's clearly one of their strengths as well.
"For the last month, our pre-clearance contest possession hasn't been where it needs to be. But across the course of the season, we're still ranked pretty highly in that stat.
"So we're not searching for something we don't know that exists. We just need to get back to our best."
Longmuir said it was positive that the Dockers still had areas to improve while sitting three games clear on top of the ladder, with their stoppage work among the areas they can sharpen in the five games before finals.
"We've got a lot of growth left in us, so it's exciting," the coach said.
"We're looking for areas of our game we can improve on. If you stand still, you go backwards in this game if you're not focusing on things that you can improve on.
"So, you know, there's some strengths in our game we still want to improve on as well and every individual has got areas that they need to work on.
"We're just focusing on those things, which we would have focused on if we were middle of the table, bottom of the table, five years ago, last year, whenever.
"It's been our mindset to get better as a group and better as individuals and we're still on that journey."
Star midfielder Shai Bolton trained on Tuesday with strapping on his hand after being managed last week, with Longmuir expecting him to return against the Eagles.
Experienced onballer Jaeger O'Meara will make way after suffering a syndesmosis injury against the Power but escaping the need for surgery.
"We're still working through the timeframes, but we're thinking more short to medium term … we know he's a pro and he'll rehab it and put his hand up (for the) back end of the season," Longmuir said.