ROUND 2 PREVIEW V WEST COAST EAGLES

SOUTH Fremantle runs out onto Fremantle Community Bank Oval for the first time in the 2022 WAFL season on Saturday against the West Coast Eagles.

The Bulldogs opened the 2022 season last Saturday beating Subiaco by eight points on the back of kicking the three goals of the game at Leederville Oval to earn a measure of revenge for last year’s Grand Final defeat.

Now South Fremantle is at Fremantle Community Bank Oval on Saturday afternoon to host the West Coast Eagles with bounce down to take place at 1.10pm.

There was a lot to like in South Fremantle’s win against Subiaco last Saturday to open the new season including impressive debuts from Steely Green, Jordan Boullineau, Lachlan Taylor, Josh Cuneo and Riley Colborne.

It was the first ever WAFL games for Green, Taylor and Colborne while Boullineau and Cuneo were playing their first games for South Fremantle having previously played at Peel Thunder and East Fremantle respectively.

Brandon Donaldson, Ben Rioli and Caleb Datson also made their returns for the Bulldogs after missing the latter part of the 2021 season while leaders Haiden Schloithe, Jake Florenca, Tom Blechynden, Nick Suban, Chad Pearson, Zac Strom, Dylan Main, Mason Shaw, Jimmy Miller and Noah Strom all made good starts to the new season.

Saturday’s opponent for the Bulldogs is an Eagles team who played a thriller last Saturday as well to open the season before losing to Perth by two points.

Jake Waterman and Jack Williams kicked two goals each for West Coast in that game while Xavier O’Neill had 27 possessions, John Levien 25, Josh Browne 23, Brady Hough 19, Greg Clark 18, Harry Creasey 18 and Joey Deegan 18.

The Eagles are also being captained this year by former South Fremantle player Zane Sumich who had 16 touches and six marks last week down back against the Demons.

The two teams have only played four times previously in the WAFL with South Fremantle winning three of those four clashes.

The Bulldogs won the two meetings in 2021 by 66 and 45 points while West Coast won by 21 points back in Round 12, 2019.

South Fremantle won the first ever game the teams played by 59 points back in Round 5, 2019 with all those previous four clashes also played at Fremantle Community Bank Oval.

One of the new faces with South Fremantle in 2022 is Jordan Boullineau and he made an impressive debut at the Bulldogs last week against Subiaco.

He had previously played 27 WAFL games with Peel Thunder before stepping away in 2021, but he was enticed to return to state league football this year and has instantly fitted in well at South Fremantle.

“It was a nice win to have against Subiaco, I don’t think I’ve ever come anywhere near getting a win over those guys playing for Peel so it was awesome,” Boullineau said.

“I spent a bit of time with my good mate Aaron Naughton over the off-season and I got a bit of a look into what it looks like to train and prepare to be an AFL player. He taught me a fair bit and I spent time running and all that with him so that sort of drove me to make a return to the WAFL again.

“I was thinking about giving someone a call who I knew to see if I could come down to train with South Fremantle and around the same time Marty Atkins rang me and asked what I thought about coming down. I jumped at the chance and came down to train prior to Christmas and I’ve loved it ever since.”

ROUND 2 – 2022 WAFL PREMIERSHIP SEASON
SOUTH FREMANTLE v WEST COAST EAGLES – FREMANTLE COMMUNITY BANK OVAL, SATURDAY 1.10PM

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