WAFL RD 6 PREVIEW

RD 6 WAFL PREVIEW | v EAGLES

South Fremantle got back to winning last week in a thriller and now will attempt to head into the State game break with momentum when hosting the West Coast Eagles on Saturday.

The Bulldogs wouldn’t have forgotten a loss to the Eagles also at Fremantle Community Bank Oval last year as they host them once more this Saturday.

The game will get underway at 1:40pm on Saturday afternoon with South Fremantle fresh off a three-point win last Saturday against Subiaco while the Eagles are coming off a 43-point defeat at the hands of East Perth.

Those results leave South Fremantle sitting in second position with a 4-1 record in defence of last year’s premiership while West Coast have significantly improved so far in 2026 to sit in fifth position with a 3-2 record.

The two teams have now played one another 12 times since the Eagles joined the WAFL in 2019 with South Fremantle winning nine of those encounters.

One of those losses did see the Eagles beat the Bulldogs in Round 5 last year at Fremantle Community Bank Oval which turned out to be the lone loss for the entire season for South Fremantle with West Coast going on to claim a wooden spoon.

But aside from that, the Bulldogs have won five of the past six meetings with the Eagles including an 87-point hammering in Round 20 last year at Mineral Resources Park.

South Fremantle premiership coach Craig White certainly isn’t taking the Eagles lightly considering they were the lone team to beat the Bulldogs last year and they are now a vastly improved WAFL outfit in 2026 as well.

He was also relieved to get through and hold out the fast-finishing Subiaco last week.

“That momentum that teams can get like Subi did can be bloody hard to stop when a team gets a run on and they’ve kinda got nothing to lose,” White told 91.3 SportFM.

“The game was real even all night and it was goal for goal in the first quarter and we couldn’t really get any further than two or three goals ahead and they were always good enough to peg us back.

“Then they had one last roll of the dice late and Stef Giro got hold of us and was near on willing his side over the line, but we were thankful to hold on and bank the win.

“Now we move on and see how we go this week against the Eagles.”

South Fremantle are coming off beating Subiaco in a thriller at Leederville last Saturday and from that team there is just the one change for this week’s clash with West Coast.

Spearhead Trey Ruscoe is out of the team and coming in is Cooper Clarke-Dehring who has kicked 14 goals in five Reserves matches so far this season.

The Eagles lost to East Perth last Saturday and from that side and there are plenty of changes to take on the Bulldogs with Sam Cipriani, James Ewing, Elijah Hewett, Darby McCarthy, Justin Prior, Harry Schoenberg and Jack Walsh into the side.

Going out for West Coast are Harry Edwards, Clay Hall, Jack Hutchinson, Tom Edwards-Baldwin, Bo Allan, Jack Williams and Harvey Johnston.

With South Fremantle playing the Eagles in the League contest on Saturday, it’s a bye for both the Colts and Reserves for the Bulldogs.

The Colts are coming off a strong 33-point win over Subiaco last Saturday to remain undefeated so far this season while the Reserves also defeated the Lions by 75 points to improve to a 2-3 record after five rounds.