Up and coming ruckman Sean Darcy admits it’s going to be ‘weird’ to arrive back at Fremantle for the first day of pre-season without Aaron Sandilands around.

The pair’s close relationship started when Darcy was drafted in 2016, and now the 21-year-old ruck protégée is set to step up as Fremantle’s lead ruckman in 2020.

Darcy has been an impressive tap ruckman in his three AFL seasons to date, leading all rucks after 26 career games with 805 hitouts.

But an improvement in his fitness would also see an improvement in Darcy’s ability to move around the ground and run out games.

After an interrupted pre-season leading into 2019, Darcy has his fingers crossed for a full pre-season this time around. 

“My goals are just to train in every session. The more sessions you train out in pre-season the fitter you get. To be fit and healthy for every session, that’s a big goal of mine,” Darcy said.

“Getting fitter is my first goal, as well as getting a bit stronger and learning the ruck roles and then learning ruck rotations with ‘Lobby’ (Rory Lobb) and the other rucks. I’m looking forward to that.” 

Darcy said that Sandilands would be missed around the club. 

“Obviously it’s a really big challenge with Aaron not being here,” Darcy said. 

“It’s going to be weird. I’m not sure how I’m going to deal with it as he’s always been there for the past three years, everything I needed I could just go up and talk to him.

“He made a promise that we would catch up at least twice a month so we’ll make sure to keep that going.

“He’s around the corner from where I’m living at the moment, so I could walk over there if I really wanted to but he would probably get sick of me!”

As well as holidaying in Europe with housemate Brandon Matera, Darcy plans to spend some time with family in Cobden in country Victoria.

But Darcy said he still can't wait to get back to WA.

“I’m loving it, I’m really enjoying living over here,” Darcy said.

“It’s much warmer than Victoria and the beaches are a lot better so I’m really enjoying life here.”