By Michael Whiting

Gold Coast SUNS coach Guy McKenna admits Saturday's match against the Brisbane Lions holds extra significance, saying it would be "on".

After watching his team go through its paces at Metricon Stadium on Friday morning, McKenna said local derbies were always special and expected more intensity from the SUNS.

Gold Coast looked bouncy and bubbly at training and anything but the team that lost by an average margin of 83 points from the week following its three victories last season.

After a week of marketing banter between the clubs that included a defaced picture of Daniel Rich on the SUNS website, McKenna said that all went out the window once the match started.

"I've been part of Western Derbies," McKenna, a former West Coast captain, said.

"The coaches, clubs and marketing departments can build it up and pull it down, but internally you don't want to get beaten so you do raise that level of intensity and ferocity at the football.

"It just gets done that way. As a player you know you're playing against a jumper that plays in your state and you want bragging rights. It's as simple as that.

That fierceness will always be there. It's human nature you can't avoid it. It's going to be on.

McKenna said he agreed with comments by North Melbourne counterpart Brad Scott that Jack Ziebell's suspension struck at the heart of the game and brought the ferocious attack on the ball into question.

However he expected the decision to have little impact on the way Saturday night's game is played.

"You want them to go hard at the footy, you coach that way from under-10s, so it'll be interesting to see how the fall out goes this week and the rest of the season," McKenna said.

Fresh from its dramatic after-the-siren win against Richmond last week, McKenna said Gold Coast could take some confidence but not much else.

The SUNS have reinstated tall forward Tom Lynch and utility Luke Russell at the expense of suspended Danny Stanley and Aaron Hall (omitted).

"We front up to this game, the ball gets bounced and that's [last week] irrelevant. It's about us bringing that same type of attitude to the game," McKenna said.

It's certainly going to be a fierce contest and this is our home ground. I think the boys have been able to show over the course of the year we've slowly but surely got better on this ground.

"We get good belief and confidence out of last week. If we don't bring that attitude like we had last week, you open yourself up, but if we do, we give ourselves a good chance of winning."

The views in this story are those of the author and not necessarily those of the clubs or the AFL.