The West Coast Eagles are embracing the challenge of pulling off arguably the biggest RAC Derby upset in history in Saturday’s ‘away’ game at Optus Stadium, coach Andrew McQualter says.

The Eagles are outsiders to topple Fremantle, with the Dockers entering the clash on the back of eight wins from the past nine matches, while West Coast suffered a disappointing loss to Richmond last round.

Despite the size of the task ahead, the Eagles are excited to take a swing at their more fancied rivals in a hostile environment.

“We’re a young, developing team. We didn’t play our best footy last week and these guys have been in really, really good form for a large chunk of the back end of this season,” McQualter said.

“It’s a great challenge. We’re embracing that and can’t wait.

“It’s like a finals game and for our team at the moment we’re obviously not going to get the chance to do that this year, so we appreciate being involved in games like this and can’t wait for that experience.

“The whole State gets behind it, it’s unique, and there’s certainly a different feel to it.”

The Eagles have made two changes, bringing back young guns Elijah Hewett and Archer Reid, but largely stuck with the team which competed well for three quarters against the Tigers.

“Ultimately, you look at last week’s game, three of the quarters were OK. One quarter was really poor,” McQualter said.

“We had 8.3 kicked against us in the third quarter and the WAFL didn’t have a game last week which is sometimes good for the WAFL players and sometimes not great.

“There’s some things from our players that need more development but we need some more consistency, clearly.”

The midfield battle looms large with Dockers star Caleb Serong claiming the past two Glendinning-Allan Medals and forming a gun onball brigade with Andy Brayshaw,  Hayden Young and Luke Jackson.

However, the Eagles’ youngsters Harley Reid, Clay Hall, Brady Hough and Hewett can’t wait to test themselves against another quality outfit.

“We appreciate it is one of Freo’s greatest strengths, but we love the challenge of that and our young midfield loves the challenge of that,” McQualter said.

“We’re in the space of every week we come up against good midfield, that’s AFL football, and we’re a young midfield that gets great experiences every week.

“We learn what other mids do. I’ve spoken about how many games our midfielders have played, but even in saying that we’ve had a little bit of continuity this year.

“These guys have played a dozen games together. I know it doesn’t sound like much, but it’s more than we had so we’re starting to understand each other a bit more.

“It’s a great challenge and experience, and we’ll face it head on.”

Eagles fans will get a glimpse of the future when emerging key forwards Jobe Shanahan and Archer Reid partner each other in attack for the first time against Fremantle’s seasoned backline.

“It’s a huge challenge. We’ve got two seriously young players but we think there’s enormous upside with the way they go about their football,” McQualter said.

“I think it’s the first time they’ve played in the forward line together.

“There might be some chemistry that will take a bit of time but it’s exciting for our fans.”

First-year defender Bo Allan wasn’t available after injuring his ankle in a tackle on Thursday and a timeline for his return is being assessed.

McQualter also backed Harley Reid to handle the attention and perform amid headlines about his contract situation.  

“Of course I’d love Harley to stay, he’s a terrific player, a terrific person and as his footy coach I absolutely want him to stay,” McQualter said.

“My job every day is to make Harley as good as he can be and make him a great teammate, which he is something that he’s been focused really hard at.”