RD-2 PREVIEW | v CLAREMONT

SOUTH Fremantle started off the 2023 season strongly at home to West Coast and will look to keep that momentum going on Saturday on the road to Claremont at Revo Fitness Stadium.

The Bulldogs beat the Eagles last Saturday at Fremantle Community Bank Oval ahead of now taking on the Tigers on Saturday afternoon. The league game begins at 2.10pm with the colts clash opening up the day at 9.10am followed by the reserves contest at 11.40am.

There was lots to like from a South Fremantle perspective coming out of the Round 1 win by 43 points at home against WCE specially considering the Bulldogs came into the season with their backs considerably against the wall.

Despite missing some key players and starting the season eight points behind the competition, South Fremantle looked impressive with Jimmy Miller kicking four goals, Brandon Donaldson three, Chase Bourne two and Mackenzie Nield two.

Jacob Dragovich marked his returning by raking up 28 possessions for South Fremantle too with Tom Blechynden gathering 25 disposals, Toby McQuilkin 25, Dylan Main 22, Brendon Ah Chee 21 and Chad Pearson 21.

Claremont took on West Perth in a grand final rematch at Joondalup on Good Friday with the Tigers on top all afternoon on the way to the eventual 14-point victory.

It was all single goal scorers on the day for Claremont with Jye Bolton racking up 28 possessions, Lachlan Martinis 26, Teia Miles 23, Ben Edwards 22, Callan England 21 and Bailey Rogers 19.

It's quite a fascinating recent rivalry that has developed between the two clubs in recent years and last season was actually the first time since 2018 where they didn’t do battle in at least one final.

They did play in the qualifying and preliminary finals of 2019, second semi-final and grand final of 2020, and then qualifying and preliminary finals of 2021.

South Fremantle won five of those six finals with Claremont's lone win coming in the second semi-final of 2020 while the Bulldogs beat the Tigers in the grand final of 2020, and then the qualifying finals of 2019 and 2021, and preliminary finals of those two years as well.

Going back to last year and Claremont did beat South Fremantle at Fremantle Community Bank Oval by 11 points in Round 3 before the Bulldogs hit back at Revo Fitness Stadium on a day where the rain bucketed down to win by 34 points.

Despite having had a rough off-season coming into the 2023 campaign and then even losing Blake Schlensog and Matthew Parker just on the eve of it beginning, South Fremantle made a strong start with the 43-point home win against West Coast last week.

The Bulldogs were still well off full strength and there's still Brock Higgins and Jake Florenca who are among those to come into the team at some point after Saturday's clash with the Tigers.

However, South Fremantle does have some handy inclusions to take on Claremont with, most notably the return of gun full-back Noah Strom who will likely have a fascinating match up with Tigers forward Jack Buller.

Young ruckman Jackson Broadbent is also a chance to make his league debut with South Fremantle on Saturday with Seth Connor, Roan O'Hehir and Jacob Sax the other players added into the Bulldogs squad for the clash with the Tigers.

The only out at this stage for South Fremantle is important midfielder Jarrad Doney who made his return last Saturday after a knee injury ended his 2022 season prematurely that was going so well.

Claremont made a strong start to the season last week beating West Perth and as a result there's little reason for coach Ash Prescott to look to change much for the Tigers' home opener on Saturday against South Fremantle.

On the back of that, there are no outs at this stage from that Claremont team from Good Friday with only Ben Clarke, Ben Elliott, George Graham and Louis Passera added to the extended squad.