WAFL ROUND 1 PREVIEW v PERTH

A fresh era for South Fremantle with a familiar face as coach and string of fresh players begins this Saturday night at Mineral Resources Park against Perth in Round 1 of the WAFL season.

Craig White has taken over as South Fremantle coach for the 2025 season and beyond following the departure of premiership winning mentor and the club’s longest serving coach, Todd Curley, at the end of 2024.

White is no stranger to the Bulldogs having his own glittering playing career in the Mighty Red V where he played 192 games including the 2005 and 2009 premierships before retiring at the end of the 2015 season – ironically the first with Curley in charge.

After missing the finals the past two seasons, South Fremantle is looking to rise back up the ladder in 2025 and the chance to get things off to a perfect start presents on Saturday night against Perth at Mineral Resources Park.

South Fremantle has made some impressive off-season signings including former AFL-listed quartet Ethan Hughes, Jamaine Jones, Trey Ruscoe and Hamish Free.

All four have been named in the Round 1 team for the Bulldogs against the Demons and with Hughes and Jones set to play in the back-line, Ruscoe up front in attack and Free to lead the ruck, they are significant additions all over the field.

Other new faces in the South Fremantle line-up include Jaxon Artemis, Fred Rodriguez and Matthew Ward while Ashton Ferreira, Chase Bourne, Roan O’Hehir, Lewis Rayson, Jacon Sax and Connor McDonald are emerging players who get an early chance to show their growth.

South Fremantle is still led by captain Chad Pearson with the Bulldogs still having a strong core group in for Round 1 including Glenn Byron, Noah Strom, Jake Florenca, Matthew Parker, Isiah Winder, Riley Colborne and Tom Blechynden.

White is thankful for the work done to recruit some high quality players before he was even confirmed as coach and is looking forward to getting off to a strong start to the new season, and to his WAFL coaching career.

“To Charlie Burke and Anthony Van Der Wielen, who is the footy director, it’s a credit to them for the guys they were able to lock away for this year while also on the lookout for a new coach,” White told TAB Radio.

“So they got all those into place and to line them up, and to fit them into the points system which is something you have to try and juggle as well. List management is a lot tougher than I was kind of aware of when I stepped into the role but those guys we’ve added shore us up over most lines.

“To get Jones and Hughes to play predominately defence, and to get a ruckman like Hamish back, and for Trey who adds to us up forward where we thought we might have been a little deficient.

“So we’ve kind of got most lines covered there and also have a really good crop of juniors that we’ve been able to develop and get to the club in a couple of positions as well.

“We’re relatively excited but just trying to keep the lid on it at the moment with the expectations externally seeming to be a little high. It’s a balance of trying to keep the members and supporters fired up, but also realistic that we might take a few games to build the chemistry to find out where we are.”

South Fremantle takes on a Perth team on Saturday night who also has a new coach, Mark Stone, and who is looking to make a strong start to the new season in a quest to rise up the ladder.

Some of the new faces in the Round 1 team for the Demons include impressive recruits Michael Randall, Tyrone Thorne, Brandon Parfitt and Conrad Williams while it’s a team still including Matthew Taylor, Charlie Constable, Blake Schlensog, Corey Byrne and Josh Edwards.

The colts contest between South Fremantle and Perth will begin the day’s action at Mineral Resources Park on Saturday starting at 12pm before the reserves match up begins at 2:30pm.