Fremantle coach Justin Longmuir says the successful return of ruckman Sean Darcy will give the team the option of resting Brownlow Medal fancy Luke Jackson at some stage in the second half of the season.

Darcy replaces Mason Cox for his first AFL game since round five in Sunday’s clash with Gold Coast at Optus Stadium, and Longmuir said a successful reunion would give the Dockers the option of managing their ruck unicorn in the lead-up to finals.

“Yeah, I think it’s something we’ve definitely got to look at,” Longmuir said before Friday’s final training session for the Suns game.

“This week’s a bit different. We’re off a 10-day break ... everyone’s raring to go.

“But it’s definitely an option with Sean in the ruck. We know what Sean’s best in the ruck is like. It’s up there with the best in the comp, so it does give us that flexibility.”

Longmuir said he would not go into Sunday’s plan for the pair “too much” but said Darcy was ready after three solid games at WAFL level for Peel, including an impressive showing last round against East Perth stalwart Scott Jones.

He has been hampered by concussion and a calf injury, but the Dockers are confident he has now done the work to resume his spot in the team.

“Sean will come in and play a similar role to what Mason’s been playing,” he said.

“Clearly, when you’re in the side, your spot is your spot. Coxie was playing his role and gives us flexibility, and then there’s obviously the bit around Sean making sure that we’re building his body to be resilient in the back half of the year.

“Unfortunately he hasn’t really been overly resilient the last couple of years, so we just thought it was a good opportunity to play him at Peel, get his game time up, get him confidence in his body, build his minutes in a way that we can control.

“I feel like we’ve done that.

“Last week he played against the mature body at East Perth (Jones), which I thought he showed really good strength. He’s moving around the ground really well, so he has earned his spot in the side.”

Just like Cox, Darcy will be expected to go forward at times and have an impact.

“To get his game time up, he’s going to play a little bit of forward time, and we’ll judge the game as it goes and see what the game needs,” Longmuir said.

“Obviously. Gold Coast have got some big boys in there in (Jarrod) Witts and (Ned) Moyle, so we feel like Sean can do a job for us in there and take a few more minutes in the ruck, and we’ll adjust it on the run.”

The Dockers’ coach would not be drawn on whether Jackson-Darcy was the preferred ruck combination.

“We’re never really locked in. People say, ‘What’s your best 23?’ but these things move week to week. This week it is, but going forward might be different,” he said.

Longmuir said resting players was an option, but not at the expense of the side, with the Dockers aiming for 14 wins in succession on Sunday.

“It’s a balance, right? You don’t want to upset team cohesion and form. You don’t want to do that with individuals either. f you ask any individual at the moment and asked them if they wanted to play this week, I’m pretty sure of the answer I’d get,” Longmuir said..

“I guess those management things come when players are going out there with niggles or injuries and we just don’t really have that.

“We just came off the bye into Geelong, we’ve had another long break. Our players are recovering really well at the moment, so not to say that won’t be the case next week or the week after or down the track.

“The other lever you can pull is being able to lower a bit of game time in game as well, so we’ll look at all those options.”

Longmuir said last year’s one-point elimination final loss to Gold Coast at Optus Stadium had not provided extra motivation, but the game itself was part of the team’s learning curve.

“It’s hard to quantify that. I think all the disappointments that we’ve had over the course of a period of time, what we’ve learnt from them, we haven’t shied away from what went wrong in those moments. We’ve owned them, and we’ve learnt from them, and we’re using those things to help us become a better side,” he said.

“So the final was definitely one of those spoken about a lot. We conceded 45 points in the second quarter, and we’ve conceded 80 for the game.

“We just fell away with our consistency, and we’ve used that over pre-season to be a more consistent side, be better at handling momentum, those types of things. So it’s definitely been a part of our growth.”

The match will be a battle of two midfields with impressive depth - the Dockers’ led by Caleb Serong, Andrew Brayshaw, Hayden Young, Murphy Reid and Shai Bolton and the Suns steered by Noah Anderson, Matt Rowell, Christian Petracca, Touk Miller and Leo Lombard.

“We are expecting physicality, expecting them to come over and play like a desperate team, given all the criticism they’re copping around their form, which, looking at it, it’s not as bad as probably people think. They’re not far off,” Longmuir said.

“They would have got a lot of confidence out of their game against Hawthorn. They did a lot right, a lot of supply, and probably just the inconsistencies in their game are letting them down.

“We prepare for every team at their best. We know what they’re capable of.

“We played some really good footy against them last year, had two really good games, and we expect a similar encounter.”