Rival coaches Ross Lyon and Adam Simpson are both planning for the return of Nat Fyfe for RAC Derby 50 at Saturday night at Optus Stadium, with the Fremantle captain missing the past two clashes between the WA-based teams.

Fyfe missed the final derby of 2018 due to a hamstring injury and sat out the round four derby this year due to concussion.

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Lyon was obviously pleased to have one of his best players available for the all-important clash that pits the eighth-placed Freo against the third-placed Eagles.

“You want your best. I coach better when I have good players and (Fyfe) makes me a better coach, but I like that. That’s good,” Lyon said.

“We’ve written our own story for the bulk of the year, it’s been positive and we’ve had some availability challenges.

“We’ve been stepping up and it’s great to have our captain in the derby.”

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Lyon said that Fyfe would embrace the challenge of playing on Elliot Yeo after Yeo was utilised as a tagger on Fyfe in the first derby of 2018.

“(Elliot) Yeo has gone to him the past few times and done quite well, so I’m sure Nathan’s keen to handle that aspect coming at him,” Lyon said.

Simpson said that he was open to having Yeo play a similar role on Saturday.

“At stages, they’ve played on each other, whether it’s a good matchup or not,” Simpson said.

“They’re both big strong, powerful players, both A-grade players and Fyfe’s probably just done it a fair bit longer than Elliot.

“(Yeo’s) still paving his way as a midfielder, it’s his second year in the midfield, he was an All Australian half back a few years ago.

“That might happen at stages, but we’ve rotated pretty well through the midfield.”