WAFL RD 18 PREVIEW

RD 18 WAFL PREVIEW | v EAST PERTH

It’s a WAFL Grand Final rematch between South Fremantle and East Perth on Saturday at Fremantle Community Bank Oval with both teams locked in a battle over a finals position in 2026.

The Bulldogs and Royals played off in what turned out to be quite a dramatic Grand Final at Optus Stadium last year and now resume hostilities this Saturday at Fremantle Community Bank Oval with the game getting underway at 2:30pm.

Coming into the Round 18 match up and South Fremantle currently sit in fourth position on the WAFL ladder at 9-6 following last Sunday’s loss to the West Coast Eagles.

East Perth are in sixth position at 8-7 but just percentage behind the fifth placed Subiaco and only a game back from the third ranked Perth and fourth placed South Fremantle.

That means it’s a significant match up for both teams in the context of their 2026 seasons in their second meeting since last year’s Grand Final that South Fremantle won in dramatic circumstances by just two points.

Their first encounter of 2026 was back in Round 9 at Leederville’s Sullivan Logistics Stadium with East Perth too strong on that occasion claiming the 12.11 (83) to 4.11 (35) victory over South Fremantle.

South Fremantle premiership defender Ethan Hughes will look for the Bulldogs to learn from what didn’t work especially for the first three quarters last week against the Eagles against a Royals team who always come in with a definite game style to try and throw off the reigning premiers.

“We’ll look to take on that opportunity and we take the learnings out of last weekend’s game and have focused on training well this week, and we’ll be ready by the time Saturday comes and be up for the challenge,” Hughes told The Kennel on 91.3 SportFM.

“It’s a must-win game so we’ll just keep building that over the next couple of weeks where we hopefully get some good results and put ourselves in a good position by the time finals come.

“They (East Perth) really bring a distinct of playing a game against us where they really want to keep the footy off us so we have to bring our forward-line pressure so that when they’re trying to switch the ball around their back-line to open up the ground that we have to bring the whole ground style of defensive pressure.

“We need to be able to stop them closer to our goals and hopefully turn it over and get it going back our ways to give our forwards an opportunity to put a score on the board.”

South Fremantle will attempt to bounce back from last Sunday’s loss to the Eagles with just the one change to that team with Trey Ruscoe back into the line-up to add some potency to the forward-line with Max Thomas going out.

East Perth had an important win against East Fremantle last Saturday and from that team, Christian Ameduri and Andre Gulluni come in to take on South Fremantle.

Going out for the Royals are Kade Screaigh and Angus Scott.

The Colts contest gets things underway on Saturday at Fremantle Community Bank Oval between South Fremantle and East Perth beginning in the morning at 9:15am.

The Bulldogs remain on top of the Colts with an 11-2 record while the Royals are in last place at 2-11 coming into the Round 18 match up.

It will be the first game in three weeks for South Fremantle since beating Swan Districts by 75 points back in Round 15 before the official bye in Round 16 and then not playing as well in Round 17 while the League team took on the West Coast Eagles.

That leads into the Reserves match up also between South Fremantle and East Perth at Fremantle Community Bank Oval beginning at 11:45am.

South Fremantle’s Reserves are in the same position as the Colts playing for the first time in three weeks and coming into Round 18 they are sitting in seventh position on the ladder with a 5-8 record.

They are taking on an East Perth team who are second at 9-4 with the Bulldogs playing for the first time since losing to Swan Districts by 32 points back in Round 15 also at Fremantle Community Bank Oval.