Only three West Coast players will take their families to the Gold Coast hub when the team departs tomorrow, the club has confirmed.

Prized recruit Tim Kelly, ruckman Tom Hickey and forward Liam Ryan are the only players set to take kids in tow for the minimum four-week trip to the Sunshine state.

Kelly has three young children, including twins, and requested a trade back to Perth at the end of 2018 and 2019 due to the difficulties being away from family support.

The 25-year-old has previously spoken publicly on his family’s struggles with two of his children, with fiancee Caitlin Miller, having been diagnosed with autism.

“For my oldest boy, as soon as we got to Geelong he was basically diagnosed with that and he's non-verbal, so there's weekly speech therapy sessions, weekly occupational therapy sessions with him,” Kelly told reporters last year.

“Earlier this year, we discovered that one of our twin boys is also going to be going down the same path where he's going to need the exact same treatment.

“The good thing is we got onto it early, but as you can imagine having to manage all of that on the other side of the country where you don't have any family support (is challenging).”

Captain Luke Shuey, Jeremy McGovern, Josh Kennedy, Jack Redden and Jack Darling are among the Eagles players who have opted not to take their young families across the Nullarbor initially.

Meanwhile Fremantle won’t be taking any family members to the Royal Pines resort, with only four listed players having young families.

The Dockers considerably youngest list means only David Mundy, Nathan Wilson, Michael Walters and Taylin Duman have children.

Coach Justin Longmuir, who has two children himself, said players would reconsider the position if the clubs are away from home for longer than the four-week period.

"If it drags out for a longer period of time than we expect, the families might come over at that period," Longmuir said.

Both WA clubs are urgently seeking a return date from the AFL, with uncertainty remaining over the fixtures after round five.

The league is set to release the next block of fixtures after round three, which concludes on June 21.

If WA’s hard border closure doesn’t ease by then, the Eagles and Dockers could be faced with a prolonged stint on the road.