ROUND 6 PREVIEW V SWAN DISTRICTS

SOUTH Fremantle heads to Bassendean on Saturday afternoon to take on Swan Districts in Round 6 WAFL action looking to continue their recent good form against the black-and-whites.

South Fremantle will head to Steel Blue Oval to face Swan Districts in Round 6 of the 2022 WAFL season with the Bulldogs attempting to win their fourth game of the campaign and Swans their third.

South Fremantle comes into the game on the back of beating Peel Thunder by 26 points last Saturday at Fremantle Community Bank Oval while Swan Districts lost to Subiaco in Kalgoorlie by 14 points.

The Bulldogs come into the game in fourth position on the WAFL ladder with a 3-2 record while the Swans are seventh at 2-3 highlighting the significance of Saturday's contest at Steel Blue Oval between two teams that played finals in 2021.

This is the first meeting between the two teams of 2022 with the last clash coming in Round 21 last year when South Fremantle won by five points at Fremantle Community Bank Oval.

It continued the recent dominance for the Bulldogs over Swans with South Fremantle having won the previous nine clashes between the teams by an average of 34.8 points.

The last win for the black-and-whites against the Red V came in Round 2, 2017 and that was also at Steel Blue Oval. But South Fremantle has won the last nine matches since including the past three at the Bassendean venue.

South Fremantle started the season with wins against Subiaco and the West Coast Eagles before a pair of losses leading into the State game break against Claremont and West Perth.

Following the break, the Bulldogs returned to action last Saturday with a solid home win against Peel Thunder to improve to a 3-2 record coming into this week's clash with Swan Districts at Steel Blue Oval.

After being limited to 11 games in 2021 because of an ankle injury, South Fremantle premiership player Ben Rioli was glad to be part of the win last week against Peel and will look to help the Bulldogs build on it now against Swans.

"It was one of those games that we had to win pretty early in the season considering how our first month of footy had gone," Rioli said.

"We didn’t really want to be sitting with two wins and three losses which wouldn’t have been a good start. That win has given us a lot of confidence that's for sure.

"Even the two losses we had, really we should have won both those games but it just sort of shows the quality of the competition this year. If you don't come for a quarter and you get caught out, you're not going to win.

"It showed us what we needed to do and while we were disappointed, it wasn’t the end of the world that's for sure being so early in the season."

Rioli admits to not quite recapturing his top form so far in 2022, but the 2020 premiership star is confident of being able to soon get back to his best shortly even if it were to take a stint in the reserves to rediscover some confidence.

"I don’t blame work at all, I just think having the injury and maybe not doing the work I probably needed to to get my body in the shape I needed to as a 28-year-old," Rioli said.

"It's a lot easier when you are 24 and your body sort of looks after itself, but when you get a bit older you probably need to do a little bit more and I probably didn’t do that, and I'm playing catch up now. 

"I think my first month of footy has been pretty ordinary and that's not sugar coating it. When you win on the weekend it makes things a little easier but I definitely know that I need to play a lot better that's for sure. 

"I felt defensively I did a few good things last week, but seven touches probably isn’t enough to keep your spot. That's just footy and you just have to rock up and give your best, and I'm pretty confident of getting the best footy out of myself over the next couple of weeks."

ROUND 6 – 2022 WAFL PREMIERSHIP SEASON
SOUTH FREMANTLE v SWAN DISTRICTS – STEEL BLUE OVAL, SATURDAY 2.10PM

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