West Coast face Fremantle on Saturday night in the 58^th RAC Derby, and while the Eagles had an exciting win against Richmond last round, coach Adam Simpson said the team is not getting too far ahead of themselves.

“We’ll give it a go, we had a good win on the weekend, but we’ve still got a lot of work to do,” Simpson said.

“We’re still working on a lot of areas of our game, and a few of the areas clicked on the weekend against an understrength Tigers.

“We’re not delusional, we’ll get a pretty good audit this week.”

Derby week is always a highlight on any WA footy fans’ calendar, and Simpson is hopeful for a full stadium on Saturday night.

“In my time, there’s been different phases that both clubs have been in,” Simpson said.

“The closest time when it was neck and neck was around 2015, whereas I think we on 10 in a row, and now they’ve won five in a row so it’s sort of been a bit lopsided the last 15 times we’ve played.

“I’m not sure what this week is going to give us but we’re definitely excited about it, and the home crowd, we had 47,000 here on the weekend.

“Winning is good, and having the ’87 boys here as well, it was just a really good environment to be in (last round) so, win, lose or draw, it’s a good week for the state.

“We get the home game this week so hopefully we get 50-plus (thousand), and it’s going to be a nice day.”

The Dockers come into this game on the back of consecutive narrow defeats, and Simpson knows Fremantle will put up a good fight.  

“Their identity is there every week, and we’re still working on ours,” Simpson said.

“It seems to be a real challenge to break through their defence, their contest is their big strength, and their stoppage work is pretty good as well.

“They’re only a couple of goals off being undefeated, so we sort of know what kind of game we’re going to get."

Emerging forward-ruck Bailey Williams will have his hands full when he faces Fremantle’s Sean Darcy and Luke Jackon in the ruck contest, but Simpson said Williams has shown improvements from week to week.

“Pretty big (challenge), and that’s always been the case against Fremantle when the two of them play,” Simpson said.

“That’s why we got ‘Flynny’ (Matt Flynn) over, but unfortunately, he’s unavailable.

“Bailey has been pretty good, the hitouts have been an issue but he’s got a lot better at competing around the stoppage, nullifying hitouts to advantage, but this is another step up.

“He’s slowly built since we played Fremantle in the practice match, it was his first game after training as a forward, then we lost Flynn the day before, so he was pretty rusty then.

“Every week he’s got a little bit better with his craft, but essentially, one day, we’d like to see him forward.”

Exciting young star Harley Reid will suit up for his first derby on Saturday, fresh off his round five Rising Star nomination for his performance against Richmond last week.

Simpson is pleased with Reid’s development so far, and his attitude towards the game.

“As long as we keep remembering that he’s 19 (years old), it’s been great to see what he can do for the team and for the club,” Simpson said.

“The attention is the attention, we can’t control it, and he seems to back it up, but he’s going to have down weeks as well.

“So as long as we’re patient with his future, we hope he will be with us for a long period of time, and we’re really please with what he’s brought, even before the weekend (against Richmond).

“He’s got confidence, which we all love, so there’s no scarring with Harley in terms of the past (derbies), he just wants to play footy to win and wants to play with his mates and that’s a great attitude.”