Fremantle coach Ross Lyon says his team welcomes the enormity of Sunday's season-defining clash against North Melbourne.
The Dockers travel to Melbourne to face the in-form Kangaroos sitting in eighth place, one win ahead of ninth-placed Carlton, who play the Gold Coast.
A Fremantle loss and Carlton win would see them replaced by the Blues in the top eight as the Blues have a superior percentage.
Lyon said there was no escaping the hype of this week's match but it was not something to be shied away from.
"We understand it's an important result. There's less margin for error," he said.
"We speak to the players about the wider community, the media, the AFL commentators and staff at work.
"You keep working and focus on the job at hand and try to take care of the opportunities that present.
"These are the games you want to be in. You want to test yourself, challenge yourself and see how much you've improved, because we feel like we've made significant improvement."
North Melbourne continued their barnstorming second half of the season with an upset five-goal win over Collingwood last week.
The Kangaroos have only lost one match in their past 10, which was by only two points against West Coast in Hobart.
Fremantle have had their own season revival after a slow start and won four of their last five as well as their last three.
Lyon said the Kangaroos were a different team to the first half of the season.
North Melbourne are the form team of the competition," he said.
"They've got three tall forwards, powerful midfielders, strong key defenders and running backs.
"They've always had those hard insiders (Jack) Ziebell, (Andrew) Swallow, (Ben) Cunnington, and they've added some real outside spread with (Brent) Harvey and (Shaun) Atley out the back.
"They've got a weight of numbers running midfield that we're going to have to combat."
The match will be played at Etihad Stadium, which has yielded greater success for Fremantle than at the MCG but Lyon said he does not believe it would provide an advantage.
"Everyone looks at those extraneous variables. I'm an anywhere, anytime coach," he said.
"I don't focus of the dimensions of the ground, I just focus on where the ball is, you've all got an opponent, a position and work."
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