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By Michael Whiting

Gold Coast SUNS coach Guy McKenna says his Fremantle counterpart Ross Lyon is drawing a long bow if he thinks the SUNS do not respect Freo.

Lyon has been on the front foot all week in the build-up to Saturday's match at Metricon Stadium, claiming tweets by Gold Coast SUNS pair Gary Ablett and Trent McKenzie showed a lack of respect for his club.

McKenzie drew the ire of Lyon after his round one tweet that Geelong defender Matthew Scarlett did everyone a favour when he punched Freo antagonist Hayden Ballantyne.

The fire was further stoked last week when Ablett described tagger Ryan Crowley as "a joke" for the way he stifled Carlton champion Chris Judd.

But speaking after Gold Coast SUNS training session on Friday morning, McKenna said Lyon could not be further off the mark with his assessment of the Suns.

"We totally respect Fremantle, they beat us by 10 goals last year. I think it's a long bow to draw that's for sure," McKenna said.

"As far as respect goes, we totally respect the competition. We're thankful to the other clubs for letting us into the competition."

The SUNS coach was in a cheeky mood though.

Following Lyon's comment saying his mother had taught him that civility costs nothing, McKenna had some motherly advice of his own.

"Speaking about what mother's teach you, one famous little line she taught me was that sticks and stones will break your bones but names will never hurt you. We just can't wait for the footy game."

McKenna did admit he would prefer his players not giving ammunition to the opposition but accepted twitter was part of the modern world.

"It's out there," he said.

"It's just the modern age. I think we have to learn to deal with it.

"Having said that … we tell our players not to do that because it is ammunition for the individual player and then obviously for the rest of the competition. You continually remind them but it's not going to be perfect of course."

The winless SUNS are again understrength without captain Gary Ablett (knee), Michael Rischitelli (ankle) – who is likely to return next week – and Jarrod Harbrow (elbow).

McKenna said he expected a better performance than the one that had them leading against North Melbourne at half-time last week before fading to lose by 34 points.

Despite their opponents missing Aaron Sandilands and Nat Fyfe through injury, the SUNS were prepared for "trench warfare".

"'Ross' Blanket', as I call it, is very hard to get through," McKenna said. "He stalls the game. I know they like to get the quick play over the top and score from that but it's designed around defence.

"They're a quality group, well coached and are going to be hard to beat on Saturday night."