Scott Selwood has sent a stern warning to his club’s cross-town rival a fortnight ahead of their NAB Challenge encounter.

West Coast will kick off its pre-season campaign with a clash against Fremantle on Tuesday, February 18 and the newly crowned vice-captain has predicted that senior coach Adam Simpson will field close to the squad’s best team in a bid to generate familiarity with a fresh game plan.

“Going into these games, I think we will field a pretty strong side our first game,” Selwood told SEN last night.

“Just to do with a new game plan and getting our head around a lot of that kind of stuff, so we all want to make sure we’re on par and ready to go for round one.

“Some teams who have been around for a while, like Hawthorn with the same coach, they might send younger teams out, but we’ve got a new coach and we think it’s pretty important to send close to our better team out there and get some experience into the new coach and things like that.”

With just three players missing from the training track yesterday, it looks like the new coach will be spoilt for choice when he sits down to select his first team.

Selwood rejected persistent rumours circling on the east coast questioning Nic Naitanui’s fitness, saying the ruckman was in top condition.

“We actually had the most numbers we’ve had in a training session for the last probably 12 months, which was really exciting,” Selwood said.

“Nic Nat had a slow progression towards Christmas, some sore days, some not sore days, but his last three weeks have been perfect.

“He did the whole training session and Beau Waters completed about three quarters of it, so those two guys are going really well.”

Selwood also revealed that changes are afoot in terms of personnel, with forwards Jack Darling and Mark LeCras likely to spend time in the midfield this year.

“I think everyone will be excited by Jack,” Selwood said.

“He’s had a big pre-season, he’s hardly missed a session, and he’s joined in some midfield work as well, so that’s going to be really exciting.

“He’ll get some pinch hitting in the midfield, along with Mark LeCras, and he’s going to be awesome in there.

“He’s just what we need, he’s a big body in there, he can throw his weight around, just for a few minutes and then get back down forward.”