PRELIMINARY FINAL PREVIEW V CLAREMONT

SOUTH Fremantle resumes what is becoming the more incredible of finals rivalries with Claremont on Sunday afternoon once again at Fremantle Community Bank Oval with a place in the Grand Final on the line.

For the sixth time over the last three years, South Fremantle will host Claremont in a finals contest at Fremantle Community Bank Oval.

While history is on the side of the Bulldogs having won four of the previous finals match ups between the two teams including winning the qualifying final two weeks ago by a point and the Grand Final last year by three points.

South Fremantle might have got over the line in some incredibly tense and tight affairs, but precious little is between the two teams and the stage is set for quite the remarkable battle on Sunday with the winner to advance to the Grand Final against Subiaco at Optus Stadium next Stadium.

Looking back on Saturday's second semi-final loss to Subiaco, it was déjà vu for Curley and the Bulldogs as they lost a fourth game in the last six years at Leederville Oval on the same occasion.

But this time he just felt it was the poor first quarter that let the Bulldogs down and while they fought hard to get back into the game in the second half, it was too much of a buffer against a good team to make up.

"It was the first quarter really when it was five to one. We started alright but then got unsettled and gave up some real easy goals," South Fremantle coach Todd Curley said. 

"Then in the second quarter I thought we were starting to fight back pretty well but gave up a couple of undefendable ones. We lost by four goals in the end and I thought again we showed some good resilience and courage to keep coming with a few blokes sore. But you can't give starts especially in finals like that.

"I thought we had lot more down in this game in the first half than we did last week. We just didn’t have more than a handful of boys who could come in at half-time thinking they had done their job. That's disappointing but I guess that's why you work to get that second chance."

The hardness at the contest was what Curley saw as the biggest different between the two teams on Saturday especially in the first half. 

And as it turned out, Jake Florenca got injured by putting his body on the line early in the game and then through a challenging second half, it was 17-year-old Jesse Motlop who stood out to Curley as one player willing to give the required physical effort.

"I think they were just harder than us to the ball to be honest. They won the ball, got it going their way and didn’t do anything that we didn’t talk about during the week. Maybe we were a bit flat, I'm not sure, but we let them score way too easy and I thought we got beaten everywhere early," he said.

"As I said to the boys at half-time, it was probably a bit of an indictment that I thought the bloke who weighed in the most and was physical, and kept his eye on the ball was the 17-year-old who was running around out there. I thought Jesse really led the way."

Sunday's game signals a sixth straight season for South Fremantle to at least reach a preliminary final. There were three preliminary final losses in a row before the Bulldogs broke through to get to the Grand Final in 2019 and then they won the premiership in 2020.

Now Curley is confident they can make the most of this double chance to bounce back from Saturday's loss to Subiaco to book in a rematch with the Lions to take part in a third successive Grand Final.

"That'll be the aim to make the most of getting this double chance. We still get another look and there's a lot of teams who aren’t playing anymore who would love this chance. We'll get down and get prepared, and get ready to go again," Curley said.

"There's definitely the confidence there that we can bounce back. Even in the second half we really bounced back, it's just that we didn’t do it for long enough. We were really slow and beaten around the ball, and they took their chances which didn’t help us get back into the game. 

"They put us under pressure early and then we missed a couple at the same time, and didn’t take our opportunities. We've lost games worse than that during the year and bounced back so we'll lick our wounds and go again."

The preliminary final between two teams so used to battling with one another and who are so evenly matched shapes us quite the dramatic Sunday afternoon at Fremantle Community Bank Oval.

Of the six finals the two teams will have now played over the last three years, this will just be the second preliminary final with the first being back in 2019 when South Fremantle won by 30 points before going on to lose to Subiaco in the Grand Final.

This run of finals battles began in the qualifying final of 2019 with the Bulldogs beating the Tigers by seven points before they would go on to meet in the preliminary final two weeks later.

Then in 2020, it was Claremont who won by a thumping 47 points in the second semi-final to move straight into last year's Grand Final. But with the premiership at stake on their home ground, South Fremantle turned the tide to win an instant classic by three points.

Now just two weeks ago in the qualifying final of 2021, Claremont opened up a more than handy 30-point early in the third quarter only for South Fremantle to kick seven of the last nine goals to be in front when the siren sounded.

However, Claremont co-captain Jared Hardisty had a free-kick and the ball in his hands with a chance to win the game for the Tigers. He wasn’t quite able to, though, and the Bulldogs won by a point.

Since then, South Fremantle took on Subiaco in last Saturday's second semi-final at Leederville Oval while Claremont played host to West Perth in the first semi-final at Revo Fitness Stadium.

Both teams found themselves in significant holes too. The Bulldogs were 40 points down to the Lions early in the third quarter and while they did manage to kick the next four goals to get back into the contest, they went on to lose by 22 points.

Claremont was able to turn the tide on West Perth, though, to finish full of running and to end up winning by 24 points to earn their spot in another preliminary final.

Now it's all on the line for South Fremantle and Claremont. Not only is it the sixth finals meeting at Fremantle Community Bank Oval in the last three years between the two teams, but from the last three clashes at the ground including NAIDOC Round this year, South Fremantle has won all three.

Remarkably those wins have come only by a total of five points highlighting just how little separates the two sides.

South Fremantle is a little wounded coming out of last week's loss to Subiaco and as a result experienced premiership defender Blayne Wilson, versatile big man Blake Schlensog and captain Dylan Main go out of the side.

Main hasn’t had a real impact in the second half of the season with his foot injury, though, while the loss of Wilson will be tough to cover especially consider the man most likely to replace him as a key defender is Schlensog who has spent the majority of his time late in attack.

South Fremantle has added Travis Abbott, Glenn Byron, Jarrad Doney, Hamish Free, Trent Newton, Seaton Thompson and George Wessels to their extended squad for the preliminary final.

At least three of those players will come into the final 22 to replace Schlensog, Wilson and Main with the coaching staff having the option to go tall by adding Free to a team still including Brock Higgins while they need to find another forward and defender at least.

Claremont does appear the healthier of the two teams coming into the preliminary final having just added Louis Passera, Ben Elliott, Marc Boyatzis and Bailey Bennett to their extended squad with nobody named out at this stage.

PRELIMINARY FINAL – 2021 OPTUS WAFL PREMIERSHIP SEASON
SOUTH FREMANTLE v CLAREMONT – FREMANTLE COMMUNITY BANK OVAL, SUNDAY 2.40PM

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