RD 6 PREVIEW | v CLAREMONT

South Fremantle and Claremont resume their rivalry on Saturday at Revo Fitness Stadium with the Bulldogs also looking to hit back from their first loss of the WAFL season.

Following a terrific start to the season for South Fremantle with wins against Perth, Peel Thunder, Swan Districts and West Perth, it was a disappointing showing with one goal in the first half last Saturday in the loss to the West Coast Eagles.

The Bulldogs now head to Revo Fitness Stadium this Saturday to take on the Tigers with the league contest getting underway at 2:30pm. The colts game will begin at 9:15am and the reserves at 11:45am.

Despite the loss last week, South Fremantle still sits in second position on the WAFL ladder with the 4-1 record and to be just percentage behind the league-leading East Perth.

Claremont sits in fourth having three wins, a loss and a draw from the opening five matches of the season with the Tigers fresh off beating West Perth at Joondalup last Friday night.

South Fremantle premiership captain and recently inducted life member Dylan Main will return for the first time in 2025 and even though it will be in the reserves, he’s expecting a tough hit out.

“It was a mixture of a few things actually and I got married late last year, and snuck off a little honeymoon,” Main told The Kennel on 91.3 SportFM.

“I also did my hamstring as well so have been trying to build back up from that and it’s all good now. I’ll ready to go this weekend and I feel like I’ve been ready for a few weeks now but we’ve been trying to be a little extra cautious with it knowing how my body’s been over previous years.

“I’m raring to go this weekend. I think I’ll be on some restricted time so I’ll come back through the reserves, which is fine.

“It is against Claremont and they’ve probably been the benchmark in the reserves for the last few years so it’s going to be a pretty intense game, and almost emulate what a league game would be like anyway.”

Main knows that every time South Fremantle plays Claremont that it’s another chapter in the rivalry and he’s looking forward to seeing how both grades pan out on Saturday.

“We’ve had a rivalry with them for five or six years now, if not longer, and they’re a great club who are well run and it’s always nice to come up against them because that’s why you play footy for those sort of tight tussles,” Main added.

“No doubt it’s going to be another one this weekend, they’re going pretty strongly as well. Their ressies are also going really well and so are ours so even in that grade it’s going to be a tough game just like in the league game.

“It’s always tough out there at Claremont as well but we’ll back our boys in and hopefully get away with the choccies.”

From the South Fremantle team that lost their first game of the season last week at home to the Eagles, Jaxon Artemis, Riley Colborne, Zac Strom and Nick Stuhldreier have been added to the squad with nobody named out at this stage.

Claremont is coming off a win last Friday night against West Perth with Bailey Banfield, Ronin O’Connor, Lucas Ravenhill and Max Rohr added to their squad to face South Fremantle at Revo Fitness Stadium on Saturday afternoon.

The day’s action at Revo Fitness Stadium on Saturday begins with the colts match up at 9:15 with both teams entering Round 6 with 3-1 records to start the season.

South Fremantle currently sits in top spot in the colts with the superior percentage and are coming off the bye last week, and prior to that did suffer a first loss of the season against West Perth at Joondalup.

So even though the Bulldogs sit on top of the ladder, they haven’t won in the colts since beating Swan Districts back in Round 3 as they take on a Tigers team fresh off their first loss of the season last Saturday at the hands of West Perth.

The reserves match up will then get underway at 11:45am with South Fremantle attempting to hand Claremont a first loss of the 2025 season.

The Bulldogs have so far won three of their four matches this season in the reserves including a last up 30-point win two weeks ago at Joondalup against West Perth as they prepare to take on an undefeated Tigers outfit fresh off beating West Perth by 11 points as well last Saturday.