RD 1 WAFLW DERBY PREVIEW

RD 1 WAFLW PREVIEW | v EAST FREMANTLE

South Fremantle’s 2026 WAFLW season gets underway with a hotly anticipated derby with East Fremantle on Saturday at Fremantle Oval with gun recruit Ashleigh Gomes first match up against her former team.

Any derby already has that extra feeling than any game and the start to the 2026 WAFLW season on Saturday at Fremantle Oval at 4:25pm will certainly be no different.

There’s plenty of added feeling for this game too and no more so than following former East Fremantle premiership captain Gomes, along with Sharks teammates Natasha Entwistle and Madison Evans making the move to the Bulldogs for the 2026 season.

Throw in the fact that both teams will be desperate to make a winning start to the new season and that there could well be some wild weather conditions the game’s played in thanks to Cyclone Narelle and there’s plenty to look out for.

South Fremantle coach Pia Faletti couldn’t be happier with the way the Bulldogs have prepared themselves for the new season and how ready they are to go, and they’ll support their former Sharks players the best they can as they face their old team for the first time.

“Everyone was ready early in the week and I think if the game was earlier, the girls would have been ready to get out there and that’s great for us that they’re so excited because it does become a long pre-season and I don’t need any extra motivation than letting them getting out there and playing footy,” Faletti said on 91.3 SportFM.

“Ash is a professional in what is for us a semi-professional environment so she’s come in and driven the standards, and her leadership has been recognised by the girls by making her part of the leadership group.

“But also it’s just the little things she does as a quality person and she’s already been huge for our program, but in terms of how she’s feeling for this game, there’s going to be some emotion in it and we’ll try to keep things as close to normal as her and the other girls who have come across also.

“That way it just becomes business as usual and the only distraction might be Cyclone Narelle and how we combat that.”

Like Faletti mentioned, the biggest hurdle to now try and overcome once the game gets underway on Saturday will be dealing with the weather conditions that Cyclone Narelle will bring to Fremantle Oval.

“It’s probably going to alter how we approach the game and we’re pretty used to wind down at Freo Oval but I think this will be somewhat unprecedented in terms of rain and wind,” Faletti said.

“You’re just going to have to take the conditions as they come and we’re still going to have to adjust to what the opposition are doing so really we focus on what we can control, and know that we can play footy a couple of different ways.

“Hopefully that will get us through the game no matter what is going on with the weather.”

It was a learning curve in a lot of ways for Faletti and the Bulldogs playing group in 2025 with her first season as coach, and she did try to throw a lot at the squad in a bid to implement new strategies and game style.

While it had some mixed results and they did narrowly miss out on playing finals, Faletti has already noticed the group has picked things up a lot quicker on the back of that coming into 2026 and are more prepared to think on their feet, and be proactive to make changes on the fly in-game.

“They all came back really hungry and I think if they could have just rolled straight into pre-season after the season finished some of them would have embraced that,” Faletti said.

“We’ve got a good balance of youth and experience, but one thing’s certain is that they all really want to learn and to be better.

“We’ve seen that session by session with little things that they take on board and adapt, and our pre-season games have been really pleasing with how the players were looking to adapt things on-field.

“That’s a change from last year as well and they’re starting to think through the game themselves in situation rather than waiting for the breaks for us to tell them so that has been really pleasing to see.”

The Rogers Cup season for 2026 will also get underway on Saturday at Fremantle Oval with South Fremantle hosting East Fremantle starting at 2:05pm.