Round 12 Preview v West Coast Eagles

SOUTH Fremantle is back home at Fremantle Community Bank Oval on Saturday to host the West Coast Eagles with the Bulldogs determined to bounce back from last week’s loss to maintain their hold on second position on the WAFL ladder.

The Bulldogs suffered just their second loss of the season last Saturday at the hands of Subiaco on the back of a seven-game winning streak, but with Claremont right on their hammer on the ladder, they do need to keep winning to maintain their hold on second position.

With the Eagles having no reserves or colts team, it means a bye for those South Fremantle teams and just the league side will be action in terms of the men’s teams this weekend. The earlier starting Round 12 WAFL match on Saturday takes place at Fremantle Community Bank Oval with South Fremantle hosting the West Coast Eagles.

Despite their positions on the ladder, it’s the Bulldogs coming into the game following a defeat and the Eagles coming off a strong victory making for quite the intriguing contest at the port.

South Fremantle does remain in second position on the ladder with an 8-2 record while West Coast is seventh at 3-7, but last week saw contrasting fortunes for the two teams in the wet weather.

The Bulldogs suffered their second loss of the season ending a seven-game winning streak, but it was the first time they’ve genuinely been outplayed in 2019 at the hands of Subiaco to end up losing by 33 points also at Fremantle Community Bank Oval.

The Eagles were in action at East Fremantle Oval earlier in the day and with Nic Naitanui’s return attracting the headlines, beyond that the West Coast team was perhaps the strongest it has fielded all season and the end result backed that up with a 72-point victory over the Sharks.

That win kept the Eagles in finals contention especially if they can back it up with a win over a Bulldogs team who do remain in second position but with a percentage below that of Claremont who they play next week at Claremont Oval, they do need to keep winning stay ahead of the Tigers.

The two teams have already played one another this year at Fremantle Community Bank Oval and on that occasion it was a commanding and impressive 59-point victory for South Fremantle.

But West Coast’s team should be significantly different in terms of personnel this time around while it’s going to be fascinating to see how South Fremantle responds after last week’s performance against Subiaco after such an impressive first nine games of 2019.

From that South Fremantle team that lost to Subiaco by 33 points last Saturday, ruckman Brock Higgins returns following his one-week suspension.

The Bulldogs have made just the one change and that sees Brendan Verrier go out of the team following the best and most consistent run of form so far this season in career which has seen him average 21.6 disposals a game.

While the Eagles have named Brendon Ah Chee, Matthew Allen, Brayden Ainsworth, Jarrod Brander and Tom Cole out of the team from the side that beat East Fremantle last week, most if not all of them still look like taking on South Fremantle on Saturday.

Tom Barrass and Nic Naitanui won’t play with the Eagles in the WAFL, though, while Nathan Vardy will come in to play in the ruck while Mitch Curnow, Andrew Fisher, Joel Ashman, Chaz Flint, Kieran Hug and Liam Robilliard have all been added to the squad.

South Fremantle coach Todd Curley is looking forward to the response from the Bulldogs following the loss to Subiaco.

“It’s probably more about preparing your own group that’s the focus because you don’t know who  you will be coming up against,” Curley said.

“With the way they play, you can prepare for that but in terms of who is actually going to play, it’s really hard. We’ll concentrate on ourselves and how we want to play.

“We’ll watch how we think they want to play as a team and then you find out the personnel later that you will come up against.”

ROUND 12
SOUTH FREMANTLE v WEST COAST EAGLES – FREMANTLE COMMUNITY BANK OVAL, SATURDAY 1.15PM