Round 5 Preview v West Perth

SOUTH Fremantle heads to Arena Joondalup hoping to keep going an impressive winning record at the venue as the Bulldogs desperately search for a first win of the 2014 season.

South Fremantle is yet to taste victory in 2014 after losses to Subiaco, Perth, East Perth and Swan Districts, but in the games with the Lions, Demons and Swans, the Bulldogs had plenty of chances to win and now this Saturday they will be hoping to take their chances against the Falcons.

The game is on Saturday afternoon as the standalone WAFL fixture of the day at Arena Joondalup.

It is a ground that South Fremantle has a good record at both in history since 1994, and in recent times.

South Fremantle has won 14 of 22 matches at Arena Joondalup overall including a 39-point win in Round 18 last year with West Perth on the way to winning the 2013 premiership.

South Fremantle is desperate to find a winning formula after starting the season with four straight losses.

They do add some size and quality back to the line-up from the team that lost to Swan Districts last week with Alistair Gillespie and Paul Mugambwa both set to return.

Each is capable of helping to provide another option in the forward-line to Ben Saunders and Josh Pullman, and also helping out Brock Higgins in the ruck in the continued absence of James Sellar with a knee injury.

Important and hard-nosed defender Adam McIntosh will also return after missing the game against Swans with Jarrod Parry a chance to play his first league game since Round 23, 2010 after some consistently strong form in the midfield for the reserves since returning from his latest knee injury.

James Laurino is the only out of the South Fremantle team at this stage who even though he did some nice things against Swans, having only seven possessions meant he simply didn’t do enough.

It is an incredibly hard West Perth team to break into coming off the 100-point win over East Perth, but that is exactly what Andrew Krakouer, Shaun Marusic and Jack Thrum are attempting to do after playing well in the reserves team that also beat the Royals by 100-plus points.

Following virtually no pre-season, Krakouer made a slow start to his time at West Perth but his last two games in the reserves have been terrific and he now looks on track to make his Falcons debut and to play his first WAFL game since the 2010 grand final for Swan Districts.

Krakouer had 26 possessions, seven tackles and a goal last week in the reserves and could add yet another quality piece to the West Perth line-up coming off winning last year’s premiership.

Suddenly a forward-line of Marcus Adams, Anthony Tsalikis, Matt Fowler, Kody Manning, Marc Crisp and the addition of Krakouer is a scary thing for opposition teams.

RESERVES TEAM

T Bairstow, M Banks, T Bennell, M Bolger, S Borovac, M Carter, E Collard, A Collica, J D’Vauz, A Galliano, A Gillespie, M Gundry, J Hall, L Harvey, C Hayden, B Hill, K Hogan, T Kelly, J Laurino, J Louthean, L Lucev, J Maskos, K Miller, S Mills, M Nicholson, S Panizza, J Pantano, J Parry, B Sokol, T Stewart, J Symmans, J Tartaglia, B Verrier, M Walley

COLTS TEAM

B Collier, J Culleton, J Depane, B Donaldson, J Dragovich, B Fimmano, J Florenca, W Frampton, J Garlett, B Kersten, C Loersch, B Matera, J McComb, G McLeod, J McMaster, B McPhail, J Mirco, D Moore, A Nodari, L Pearson, C Salmon, K Stewart, N Strom, T Wheeler, S Williamson

By Chris Pike