“Regardless of where we are on the ladder or how the respective teams are travelling they have always been good games and it is an old-fashioned, cross-town rivalry which has been alive and kicking for a while and still going healthily,” Littlejohn said.

“They are well-coached well and I think he (Chris Hills) has them going on the right path and they’ve shown that and are playing some good footy – if you went on form from last week they would probably be favourites.

“We’ve spoken about it all week that we have to be at our best to make sure we come away with the result that we want.”

Littlejohn said the club had been focused on fixing “some little things” following a below-par performance last week.

“The standards and things that we expect within our four walls and making sure that we’re picking up on those behaviours and each individual is pulling their weight and plays their role. Last week I don’t think we had 22 people playing their roles - although we got the win which was good and sometimes it is good to win ugly - we need to make sure we have our 22 contributors playing their roles each week and that’s when we play our best footy.

“It’s going to be tough and this group understands that just because of what’s happened over the past two years we don’t have the right to roll up and expect we will get the points each week.”