Despite a 10-goal win Fremantle two weeks ago, Essendon will start its do-or-die elimination final against the Dockers as a ‘slight underdog’.

That’s the opinion of Bombers defender Scott Lucas, who cited both the home-ground advantage Fremantle will have Subiaco Oval on Friday night and Essendon’s inability to win away in recent times as the two key reasons.

“I think in the general football public we do go in slight underdogs. I don’t think they’ve been beaten over there this year and they play a good brand of football,” Lucas told reporters before training at Windy Hill on Wednesday.

“But certainly we got a lot of confidence out of our win against them two weeks. There’s probably an upset in each finals series so that’s something you can’t discount either.”

Alongside Lucas was fellow defender Sean Wellman, who described the comments from Fremantle predicting a strong physical challenge as a ‘back-handed compliment’.

Lucas agreed, adding: “You want to try and play hard football as you do in and finals match certainly we’ll be looking to do that but I think it’s been blown out of proportion a fair bit some of the comments.”

“We’re the ones that bash them up but (Paul) Medhurst was reported and (Jeff) Farmer was investigated. I guess that’s interesting.”

After a season where the club needed to give several youngsters time to settle in the side in addition to coping with a few injuries, everything is starting to come together according to Wellman.

“I definitely think we’ve got some good weeks of football in front of us, we just have to obviously now, keep winning,” Wellman said.

Having just recovered from a hamstring problem, Wellman was pleased to take the opportunity to go over to Perth after training on Wednesday and have time to acclimatise.

Most of the players will leave on Wednesday, with a further batch to make the trip on Thursday morning as the club seeks to find the right formula to winning outside Victoria.

“I think we have to probably toughen up a little bit when we do get on the road and I think it’s a good challenge this week to start fixing it up now. We’re definitely aware of (our poor away record),” Wellman said.

He also gave a show of support to a sadly out-of-form Mark Mercuri under pressure to retain his place in the side.

“We’ve all gone through bad patches of form and I think that’s when your team mates need to sort of rally around you and get behind you.”