Fremantle Dockers picking between Oscar McDonald and Josh Draper as second ruckman against Melbourne Demons

Fremantle are weighing up whether to select Oscar McDonald as Sean Darcy’s back-up in the ruck for Saturday’s game against Melbourne or throw defender Josh Draper into the role.

The Dockers must find a replacement for Pat Voss after he was suspended for three games for striking Richmond’s Nick Vlastuin.

Luke Jackson is injured and, after deciding against using Liam Reidy last week, the Dockers are again looking at a different option.

McDonald flew to Melbourne mid-week along with midfielder Neil Erasmus, with the pair joining last week’s travelling emergency James Aish in the Fremantle travel party.

Coach Justin Longmuir said the club had been trying to turn McDonald into another ruck option in the WAFL.

“He’s played Vossy’s role at WAFL. We’ve tried to develop him into a bit of a swing man for us and a needs basis,” Longmuir explained.

“We’ve got a number of tall defenders that he’s probably behind at the moment. So, to create opportunities for him to get into the team, we have put him forward and he’s played that forward/ruck role for us. So he’s an option.

“The other option is to do it within the team. We are quite tall down back so there is the option to do it within the team. Drapes finished there last week.”

Key forward Josh Treacy also did some ruckwork last week but Longmuir’s preference is to keep him inside 50 for as long as possible.

Darcy spent nearly 78 minutes on the field against Richmond and competed well against Toby Nankervis. He faces another big test in his return to the AFL from injury with Melbourne’s Max Gawn an imposing force.

Longmuir said Darcy would have increased game time against the Demons.

“We are expecting him to do a little bit more,” he said.

“He will build his minutes. A six-day break is not ideal but he played pretty low game time. We were able to stick to unders last week given it was hot, we had a six-day break and the game was in our grasp. We managed him pretty well. He’ll continue to build his game time.

“I thought he competed really well against Nank last week. It was a good stepping stone into Gawn. He’s the best ruck in the comp obviously. Sean is going to have to play him really well.”

The Dockers are aiming for four wins in a row while Melbourne have endured a horror start to the season and sit in 17th spot with a 0-5 record.

But after seeing Melbourne up close during the pre-season when Fremantle beat them in Mandurah, Longmuir warned the Demons were vastly better than their record suggests.

“We need to get the contest right, especially around stoppage. They’ve got some stars around there,” he said.

“I know they’re copping a lot of flak for the way they’re playing but I don’t really feel like they’re too far away. They’ve won the inside 50 count in four of their five games. It was only the Gold Coast game where they lost that. They just haven’t been able to tie their work off inside 50.

“We’re on high alert for some of that to start clicking. They’ve been a really good defensive team for years and I feel like that’s not far away from clicking as well. We need to be better around our stoppages than we were in pre-season when they gave us a bit of a touch up around clearance. We need to get the game in our front half and we’ll go from there.”