THIS Saturday's NAB Challenge game at Noarlunga might not be for premiership points but Port Adelaide and Fremantle will be desperate to finalise preparations for round one as they try to make up for 2007.
It will be the Power's final hit out before again facing Geelong, who humiliated them in last year's Grand Final. The 2007 season was extremely disappointing for the Dockers who finished 11th and both teams will be close to full strength this week.
Fremantle coach Mark Harvey rested Matthew Pavlich, Aaron Sandilands, Luke McPharlin, Michael Johnson, Dean Solomon, David Mundy, Jeff Farmer, Rhys Palmer, Antoni Grover, Roger Hayden and Des Headland for last Saturday's 36-point loss to North Melbourne and all will play the Power on Saturday.
"Basically the 10 guys that we left out last week will come back in. It's always a dilemma when to play them and we did it this way because we didn’t want them missing two weeks leading into round one," Harvey said.
"We will pretty much be at full strength and there will be one or two young guys that I would like to have another look at. Port Adelaide will be near their best too, so we will weigh up whether we play guys like Palmer, Mayne, Warnock and Head."
One aspect of the game that Harvey is particularly looking forward to is the opportunity to see giant ruckmen Sandilands and Rob Warnock together. He is confident the pair can become an influential ruck combination, with Daniel Gilmore to chip in at times.
"Robbie is still getting completely match fit and Aaron is a lot ahead in that regard, but the continuity of how we use them will be interesting," he said.
"You would like to be a midfielder knowing you have two guys of that height and stature there. We will still use Gilmore in there at times, it will just depend on the flow of the game and if we can exploit the opposition."
Apart from the season-ending knee injury to Paul Hasleby, Harvey is pleased with what he has got out of the pre-season and will look to play his best 23 or 24 players this Saturday. As for the concept of the NAB Cup as a whole, Harvey enjoys it, but was quick to point out his opinion on Paul Roos and his current situation with the Sydney Swans and the AFL.
"We have wanted to get our guys ready for round one and the problem has been you aren’t quite sure if they are 100 per cent match fit because of how many you have on the bench. This week we will look to have only five or six on the bench, as long as Chocco agrees to that," he said.
"Paul Roos has a lot of integrity and part of his strength as a coach is the way he gets his message across to his players, so I'm not sure where this is going to head to.
"The competition is purely a rehearsal of what you want to do in the season and having if winning is part of that, it can create confidence and momentum. You are looking if young guys can win a game, whether they can outplay a senior player and it's an intriguing part of the build-up to round one."