MIDFIELD and strategy coach George Stone says there won’t be any surprises from either Paul Roos or Fremantle coach Ross Lyon, when the two sides go head to head at TIO Stadium on Saturday night.

Stone, who has worked with both at the Sydney Swans and knows them very well, said the duo wouldn’t pull any shocks in their round 16 clash.

“They know each other’s game plan backwards, so I don’t think there is going to be any ambushing tomorrow,” he told Dee TV.

“But they’re interesting [people] and have similar philosophies on football and that means a contested game, so it should be pretty exciting.”

Stone said he expects Fremantle to be “very tough competition”.

“They’re a fierce tackling side and put a lot of heat on the ball, so it’ll be a good test for our side,” he said.

“Something we try to aspire to is that contested football and they’re one of the best in the business, so we’re looking forward to our guys having a crack at it.”

Stone said the Demons must be switched on from the start to avoid another disappointing start, as was the case in their six-point loss to the Western Bulldogs at Etihad Stadium last round.

“We had a poor passage in the play, where they got away from us a little bit,” he said.

“What we’ve been really working on is trying to have a consistent, even contribution over 120 minutes.

“At the moment, we have little patches where we don’t have that and we’re getting scored against, and it’s something that we’re really trying to rectify as a young group, [along with] learning the game plan.

“In time, we’ll get better at that, but we need to get better at that pretty side against a side like Fremantle.”

Meanwhile, Stone said Melbourne’s delayed departure from Melbourne Airport on Thursday morning didn’t cause any hiccups.

Although many of the club’s officials were delayed, most of the players and a handful of officials had already arrived in Darwin on Wednesday.

“We had about one hour and a half on the tarmac in Melbourne, but that’s what happens when you go interstate,” he said.

“You’ve got to put up with those things, but we got in at good time, so really there was no delay, other than sitting around reading the in flight magazine.”