ROUND 22 PREVIEW V WEST COAST EAGLES

SOUTH Fremantle hosts the West Coast Eagles in the last game of the home and away season with the Bulldogs capable of finishing anywhere from first to fourth position depending on how the afternoon unfolds.

Saturday will see the 2021 Optus WAFL Premiership Season come to a conclusion and while the five teams who are going to be taking part in the finals can't change, all five positions in that top five are still all to be decided based on how the four last round match ups pan out.

South Fremantle finishes the home and away season up against the bottom placed West Coast Eagles on Saturday from 2.10pm at Fremantle Community Bank Oval.

There are plenty of equations still possible for the Bulldogs not only dependant on how they perform against the Eagles, but also how the other three matches of the last round unfold.

South Fremantle comes into the last round in second position on the WAFL ladder with a 12-5 record which has them a game but only a small percentage behind Subiaco and only 0.39 per cent ahead of the third placed Claremont.

If the Bulldogs are able to take care of business and beat the Eagles, it's still possible for South Fremantle to snatch top spot should Subiaco also lose to Peel Thunder. For South Fremantle to leapfrog Subiaco, they'd likely need make up a four-goal gap.

However, should Subiaco beat Peel, then South Fremantle is locked in a battle over second position with Claremont. With only 0.39 percent separating the two teams, that only counts for about a one goal difference.

So assuming that the Bulldogs beat the Eagles and the Tigers beat the Swans on Saturday, the team that earns second position will likely be whoever wins their game by the biggest margin.

And the reward of that will be getting to be the home team in next weekend's qualifying final which at this stage looks likely to be between South Fremantle and Claremont.

However, an extra spanner could be thrown into the mix if South Fremantle happens to lose to West Coast on Saturday and West Perth beats Perth by a big margin. 

That would be a worse case scenario, but should the Falcons be able to make up the percentage gap, the Bulldogs could even slip down to as far as fourth position. But in reality, that does appear decidedly unlikely.

South Fremantle and West Coast have only met three times in history with the Bulldogs winning two of the three match ups including a 66-point win back in Round 8 of this season.

South Fremantle was able to consolidate second position with a five-point win over Swan Districts last Saturday with the Bulldogs on top most of the day, but it did take Mason Shaw marking and goaling in the dying minutes to secure the important win.

That result kept the Bulldogs in second spot coming into this final round match with the Eagles.

South Fremantle coach Todd Curley won't be looking at other scores from around the league, but just wants the Bulldogs to playing as well as they can on Saturday to take good momentum into another finals series.

"The priority for us really, whether we finish first, second or fifth doesn’t really worry us too much, is about having all our players fit and available. We'll be pretty close to doing that which means that we will be around the mark," Curley said.

"If you are in the team at this time of the year it's a privilege and if you play well, you'll stay in. I thought last week we tried hard but our decision-making with the ball was the issue and we were a bit fumbly, but they are issues we can fix pretty quick.

"We'll just prepare to play like we always do and not worry about the scoreboard. We just have to get the process right and the scoreboard will take care of itself. We've done a really good job to be where we are now, we just have confidence in the way we play and how we go about it, so we'll take care of business."

West Coast comes into the game in last position having now lost their past three matches including a 96-point loss to Claremont last Saturday.

It looks decidedly unlikely that the Eagles would be able to avoid the wooden spoon. For that to happen they would need to beat the Bulldogs and hope the Demons lose to the Falcons with the turnaround to be around the 150-point mark.
 

ROUND 22 – 2021 OPTUS WAFL PREMIERSHIP SEASON
SOUTH FREMANTLE v WEST COAST EAGLES – FREMANTLE COMMUNITY BANK OVAL, SATURDAY 2.10PM

LEAGUE LIVE STATS