Fremantle Dockers star Luke Jackson believes he and Sean Darcy’s ruck combination can overpower Max Gawn

Luke Jackson has declared Fremantle must maximise the advantage of having two premier ruckmen when they face off against Melbourne superstar Max Gawn and attempt to wear down the eight-time All-Australian. Gawn looms as a massive challenge for the Dockers at Optus Stadium on Saturday following a dominant display in his team’s win over St Kilda at the MCG on Sunday. Gawn overpowered high-profile Saints recruit Tom De Koning with his superior fitness and spent 91 per cent of the game on the field, the most of any ruckman across both Opening Round and round one. Jackson started his career as Gawn’s teammate and protege at the Demons and understands what makes the Melbourne captain a modern day great. The 24-year-old said Fremantle must use their dual ruck set-up to combat his former mentor. “Max is the biggest task in footy when it comes to the ruck,” Jackson told The West Australian. “Max has always been a great runner, and he’s always been really good on the follow up as well. Obviously his biggest strength is his marking and tap work. “He’s just an all-round great player and he just seems to be getting better and better each year. “We’ll see how the dynamic works on Saturday. But hopefully Sean and I can really work well together in this game and both use our strengths to hopefully help the team to win the midfield battle, which will go a long way to win the game. “Sean and I obviously bring a lot of different strengths. He’s a very, very strong player, Sean, and I like to use my running power a lot. So hopefully we can kind of combine those strengths, and that goes a long way to winning the game.” Fremantle vice-captain Caleb Serong backed in his side’s combination to challenge Gawn, who he labelled “the best ruckman of our generation”. “We’ll have our work cut out for us, and they will too, but I couldn’t trust our ruck brigade any more in terms of being able to wear opposition rucks down and get on top late in games,” Serong said. “Gawny’s the best ruckman of our generation and he’s incredible, so looking forward to seeing that battle this week. “They always, all three of them, Gawny, Sean and Luke get up for it and have some great battles.” Gawn spent the entire decisive final quarter on the ground as he willed his team to a 13-point victory over the Saints and allowed Jacob van Rooyen, who kicked a career-high six goals, to remain in attack. He had 10 disposals, three score involvements, kicked a goal and had a game-high 224 metres gained in the final term as he mentally and physically grinded De Koning down. But the 34-year-old conceded he will need more assistance against the Dockers. “I’ve got Sean Darcy/Luke Jackson combination coming up this week. I doubt I’ll be able to stay out on the ground this week with those two because they’ll tire me out in the first half,” Gawn told Triple M. “So we might need to do something differently and Harry Petty might need to ruck some more minutes.” Fremantle have won both of their previous matches against Melbourne when both Jackson and Darcy were in the same team and opposed to Gawn. Darcy had limited game time during Saturday’s loss to Geelong, spending only 45 per cent of the match on the field, but he was in the centre square for nearly half of those ruck contests.. Fremantle football boss Joe Brierty said while recruit Mason Cox provided “food for thought” at the selection table, he hinted the Dockers would likely back in Darcy against the Demons. “Mason’s coming off a really strong pre-season performance against Adelaide, so it definitely gives us food for thought, but Sean’s definitely played some really important footy for us working with Jacko and we think he’ll continue to build,” Brierty told SEN. The Dockers gave up a 35-point lead to lose to Geelong by 10 points but Jackson said the team took plenty of heart from a rampaging first quarter where they kicked eight goals to three. He said the Dockers now had to repeat that style for longer. “That first quarter, especially the brand of footy we were playing and the way we were scoring, is the team we want to be,” Jackson said. “But we need to stamp that and do it for longer in games if we want to take the next step. I think there was a lot of improvement compared to games previous about how we played and thought it was really exciting. It’s still only really early in the season, so hopefully we can just keep building on it. “We’ve got some pretty dynamic players on every line and we’ve got a lot of speed, so we feel like if we can play more to that side, it’s really going to benefit us.”