RD 6 PREVIEW | v EAST PERTH

SOUTH Fremantle’s WAFLW team is back in action on Saturday afternoon at home to East Perth at Fremantle Community Bank Oval.

The WAFLW season took a break over the Easter long weekend following the opening month of the season and now the resumption of hostilities sees the Bulldogs play host to the league’s newest team, the Royals, on Saturday afternoon.

The game will get underway from 3.40pm on Saturday afternoon while the South Fremantle-East Perth Rogers Cup match up will begin the day’s action from 1.35pm.

There’s an added piece of intrigue to the contest as well with South Fremantle great Jenna Allomes now coaching East Perth’s WAFLW team for the first time in 2024.

The Bulldogs’ WAFLW fairest and best award is the Allomes Medal, named in recognition of the service by both Jenna and her mother Sally.

South Fremantle comes into the Round 6 match up currently holding a 1-3 record on the season after the opening month, but it’s been a tough fixture so far for the Bulldogs coming off reaching the preliminary final in 2023.

First up was a three-point loss to reigning premiers East Fremantle before a tight loss to the undefeated Claremont, a thumping 67-point victory against Peel Thunder and then last up a loss to the also unbeaten West Perth prior to the break.

East Perth, meanwhile, remains winless 20 games into life in the WAFLW competition as the newest team who joined at the start of 2023.

The Royals lost all 16 matches last year and have so far lost all four of 2024 by an average of 59 points, but they have shown some strong signs of improvement to date.

The two teams did play one another twice last year with South Fremantle winning the first meeting by 66 points in Round 2 at Fremantle Community Bank Oval.

The second clash took place at Leederville Oval in Round 10 and it was an even more thumping win for the Bulldogs over the Royals to the tune of 104 points.

Following the Round 4 loss to West Perth, South Fremantle has several changes to its line-up to take on East Perth this Saturday.

There are four changes for the Bulldogs with Tara Lee-Anne Garlett coming in to make her WAFLW debut while Shannyn Pomersbach, Megan Bain and Summer Mollross are the others also coming into the team.

Going out for South Fremantle are Ariana Hetherington, Hannah Young, Holly Ifould and Zoe Huggett.

The game on Saturday afternoon will also be the 50th in the WAFLW competition for South Fremantle since joining in 2021.

It’s been constant improvement from the Bulldogs ever since including making the finals for the first time in 2023, and the only player who has been there for every game has been ever-reliable defender Pia Durk.

As a result, Durk will reach her 50-game milestone in Saturday’s match to become the first South Fremantle player to achieve the feat in WAFLW.