RD 20 PREVIEW | v PERTH

FOR the first time since the end of Round 1, South Fremantle has slipped outside the WAFL top five and now must bounce back this Saturday against Perth at Lathlain to keep finals hopes alive.

After that Round 1 loss to East Perth, South Fremantle hammered West Coast the next week and has been sitting inside the top five ever since.

That was until following last week’s loss at home to Peel Thunder with Claremont replacing the Bulldogs in fifth position.

Now if South Fremantle wants to play finals again in 2024, wins against Perth and then West Perth will be needed and then the Bulldogs will be hoping the Tigers have a slip up against either West Coast or Subiaco.

The first task for South Fremantle is this Saturday against Perth at Lathlain’s Mineral Resources Park with the game getting underway at 2.30pm.

South Fremantle will be looking to make it three straight wins against Perth on Saturday as well having won the last two matches by an average of 22 points.

The last of those was back in Round 6 of this season at Fremantle Community Bank Oval with the Bulldogs holding the Demons to just the four goals on the way to the 37-point victory.

On that day, Isiah Winder delivered a blistering best on ground performance with 35 possessions and three goals while Tom Blechynden gathered 31 disposals, Roan O’Hehir 31, Haiden Schloithe 30, Toby McQuilkin 28, Chad Pearson 28, Ashton Ferreira 23.

Going back further and South Fremantle has won five of the past six matches against Perth with the last loss coming in Round 7 last year at Fremantle Community Bank Oval.

The game has some added intrigue with Peter German now departed as coach of the Demons and Todd Curley confirming he’s in his last season with the Bulldogs.

Curley is South Fremantle’s longest serving coach and took the Bulldogs to the premiership in 2020, but is just focused on keeping his team in the finals mix.

“I have probably been thinking about it for a little while and once I made the decision over the weekend, I was pretty keen let the club know and the players as soon as we could,” Curley said.

“I let the club know Monday and we sort of had to wait around until Tuesday to tell the players, but once that’s been done, it’s a bit of relief. We’ve got two game to go and if we can both those and have a bit of luck, then we can still qualify. We’ll see how we go.”

From the South Fremantle team that lost to Peel last week, Josh Branchi, Brandon Donaldson, Ashton Ferreira, Jake Florenca, Dylan Main, Kyle Russell, Jacob Sax and Haiden Schloithe have all been added to Saturday’s squad.

Going out for the Bulldogs are Riley Colborne, Toby McQuilkin, Jaren Carr and George Wessels.

Perth is looking for a fifth win of the season with Mark Stone taking over as coach for the remaining two matches with Tarkyn Brogan-Henry, Noah Cachard and Clayton Wood coming into their team.

Going out for the Demons from the team that lost to Subiaco are Connor Sing, Cooper Moore and Regan Clarke.

The colts contest gets things underway on Saturday morning at Mineral Resources Park beginning at 9.15am with South Fremantle looking to back up winning the past two weeks against both East Fremantle and Peel Thunder.

That has the Bulldogs colts sitting in sixth position on the ladder and six points behind the fifth ranked Perth.

So the only way for South Fremantle to replace the Demons in the top five is to win on Saturday and then do the same in the last round against West Perth, and hope in turn that Perth loses to Swan Districts.

The reserves match up at Lathlain then begins at 11.45am with South Fremantle looking to consolidate their finals position.

Coming into the contest on Saturday and both South Fremantle and Perth are tied on eight wins for the season with South Fremantle sitting fourth thanks to a superior percentage.

The winner of Saturday’s game will be guaranteed of playing finals but the loser will remain vulnerable especially should East Perth beat East Fremantle at the same time on Saturday.