The build-up to this week's derby had lacked the intensity of previous years until this morning when the gates were locked at Fremantle Oval and security was placed on the entrance to check who was driving into the public car park inside the ground.
Ross Lyon said there was nothing sinister at play other than building the drama around Sunday's clash at Patersons Stadium.
"It's just a bit of theatre, really," Lyon said.
"You can write about it, talk about it. They'll have to get the ladder out and be on the hill.
"We're not going to do anything special. It's really unusual for us."
The last time Fremantle placed security on the gates at Fremantle Oval was during Grand Final week last season. It is a difficult ground to close because a large public car park sits inside the ground between the playing surface and the grandstands. There is also a public gym inside the main grandstand.
"It's really difficult here to have closed sessions," Lyon said.
"Typically we haven't had them although occasionally we like to. The general public can come in but what we do is we advertise it as a closed session.
"So what happens is opposition scouts tend to turn up and when you identify you're in a position where you can say 'look, we will respect your environment' and we can then ask them to leave. It's a pretty hard ground to lock down but, yeah, it's just a slight shift."
The Dockers are coming off consecutive losses for the first time since round four last season.
Lyon has made a statement by dropping a member of the leadership group, Matt de Boer. The coach has asked de Boer to go back to the WAFL and find some form and expects the 24-year-old to bounce back quickly.
Hayden Ballantyne has returned from suspension and Lyon revealed that Michael Barlow, who has missed the last four matches with a knee injury, was almost a certainty to play after being named in the squad.
"(We're) really, really, really, really confident," Lyon said.
"He's trained well. He did a huge amount on Monday so we backed him off on Wednesday so he would be cherry ripe for today.
"We’ve named 25 but we're really optimistic that he'll be fine, which is great for us because he's a very good player."
There was some concern over the fitness of star midfielder Nat Fyfe after the reigning Dockers best and fairest was absent from training on Wednesday. Lyon said reports about Fyfe's flu were exaggerated.
"I think he rang in, he was a little bit off," Lyon said.
"It's certainly not the flu and he is basically 100 per cent."
