After an amicable five weeks together in a hub on the Gold Coast, Fremantle captain Nat Fyfe believes any friendliness with local rivals West Coast will go out the door at bounce down of Sunday’s RAC Derby at Optus Stadium.

Freo and West Coast shared the same hotel at the Royal Pines Resort and Fyfe said both teams were happy to put the rivalry aside for the duration of their stay.

“There were a lot of hallway conversations, the lift opening and West Coast players walking in and seeing each other around the hotel,” Fyfe said.

“We were in pretty close confines for five weeks. There was a level of familiarity but I can guarantee that once we cross the line, both West Coast and us will be doing whatever we can to get the win and it will be on.”

Hub life for the WA teams followed a similar script with both teams losing their first three games in the hub before winning back-to-back games in the past fortnight.

Fyfe said West Coast were beginning to hit their straps.

“They’re starting to get some connection through their midfield group and are starting to fire with their ruck/forward combination,” Fyfe said.

“We know how capable they are and we’ll have to be at our best to match them and beat them this week.”

While Fyfe said he was in doubt for the clash due to his lingering hamstring injury, he was confident ruckman Sean Darcy would be cleared to play after being concussed against St Kilda.

“Speaking with Sean so far today and yesterday, he looks like’s he’s pass his cog-state test pretty comfortably,” Fyfe said.

“He has no symptoms, that could change, concussion’s a weird thing but at this point we’re pretty confident he’ll be available.”

Fremantle’s 2020 season has been hampered with inconsistent performances within games, and this was no more evident than in Freo’s fightback after a disappointing first quarter against St Kilda.

Fyfe said Freo were starting to get more confidence in their game plan and hoped that would lead to more consistency.

“I wish we had the magic answer there, we’ve been working on system, system is what wins games of footy,” Fyfe said.

“For whatever reason, things started to click for us early in the second term on the weekend and we played three quarters, mostly of really high quality footy in the system that we want to play by.

“We’re hopeful that we’ll iron some more kinks out with our game plan over the next four or five games and become a more consistent team.”