DERBY PREVIEW | v EAST FREMANTLE

A FRUSTRATING season for South Fremantle so far in 2023 could become much easier to digest if the Bulldogs are able to extended the longest winning streak in derby history to 16 on Saturday against East Fremantle at Fremantle Community Bank Oval.

The second derby of the 2023 season will take place at Fremantle Community Bank Oval this Saturday afternoon with South Fremantle attempting to remain undefeated against East Fremantle dating right back to 2016.

The league contest begins at the port on Saturday at 2.10pm with the colts beginning the day at 9.10am with the reserves beginning at 11.40am.

The Bulldogs beat the Sharks for a 15th consecutive time back on WA Day earlier this season at the WACA Ground to extend what is already the longest winning streak in the rich and storied history between the Fremantle rivals.

Even though it's South Fremantle all but out of finals contention and East Fremantle sitting pretty in third position on a four-game winning streak, it's quite the remarkable hoodoo the Sharks are attempting to overcome against the Bulldogs.

Despite the 15-game losing streak, with both teams coming off a bye last weekend it's East Fremantle coming into the game with form on its side having won four straight matches.

That has the Sharks sitting in third position on the WAFL ladder with a 9-4 record and they will go to second with a victory with Claremont having the bye.

South Fremantle, meanwhile, did have a win last up against Perth prior to the bye and won't want to give up a first derby loss since 2016 now on Saturday in the match up at Fremantle Community Bank Oval.

South Fremantle captain Dylan Main enjoyed last week's bye coming off the win against Perth where he kicked three goals to freshen up for the derby this Saturday.

"It's nice coming off the bye so it should be a fast flowing bye on the weekend with East having had the bye as well," Main said. 

"The boys trained well last week and have done well this week in preparation, and these are the games you want to win. They're the games that we get the biggest crowds to as well so they are really nice to be a part of. There's a bit on the line always too with derbies so it's an exciting week. We look forward to it."

While obviously Main hopes that South Fremantle can extend the derby winning streak to 16 in Saturday's game, that winning run isn’t necessarily something he'll be mentioning to his team and will just be focused on the job at hand against an in-form Sharks outfit.

"It's definitely a driver, your kind of never want to lose especially when it comes to derbies but we don’t talk about that streak too much," Main said. 

"I don’t really like to speak about it and we take each game on its laurels, and credit to East they are having a great year and are tracking along pretty nicely this last month. 

"No doubt they may use it as motivation to rev them up to end the streak, but we're trying to put that to aside and just play East Fremantle as East Fremantle out there this week without worrying about what's happened before. We just want to win every game and we'll treat this one no differently."

South Fremantle comes into Saturday's derby having won the last 15 match ups between the two storied rivals in what is the biggest winning streak in the history of the clubs that dates back to their first meeting in 1900.

Saturday's game is the 389th time the two teams have played and never before has one of the sides won 15 straight derbies, but the Bulldogs will now be looking to stretch that to 16 to continue the run going dating back to 2016.

The last time East Fremantle beat South Fremantle was WA Day back in 2016 when the Sharks prevailed by 39 points at Fremantle Community Bank Oval.

From that game, the only East Fremantle participant who played and could also play in Saturday's match up is captain Matthew Jupp. The only other current player is Ryan Lester-Smith but he's set to be playing another game in the reserves on his comeback.

From the South Fremantle team, only captain Dylan Main, 169-game veteran Zac Strom and premiership midfielder Jacob Dragovich played in that last derby loss for the Bulldogs who will be out there trying to stop it happening again on Saturday.

It's been a remarkable run over the last 15 derbies for South Fremantle with an average winning margin of 59 points. It has included a high of a 145-point margin back in 2017 along with four other wins by 90 or more points, but there's also been a two-point win back on WA Day last year.

The WA Day contest of this year took place at the WACA Ground and in wet, cold and muddy conditions, South Fremantle proved too strong on a dramatic day that included a 30-minute delay in the third quarter for lightning.

South Fremantle ended up kicking the last three goals of the low-scoring contest to prevail 5.7 (37) to 2.11 (23).

In the victory, Kaiden Harbour kicked three of the five goals for South Fremantle with Matthew Parker racking up 27 touches, Jake Florenca 22, Jordan Gallucci 21 and Dylan Main 19.

East Fremantle's goals came from Dillon O'Reilly and Brayden Lawler while Hugh Dixon had 28 possessions and 35 hit outs in the ruck. Fraser Turner also had 25 touches, Milan Murdock 24 and Cam Eardley 21.

South Fremantle had the bye last week coming off a win against Perth with the Bulldogs forced into at least one change for Saturday's derby at Fremantle Community Bank Oval.

Premiership defender Chad Pearson is having another fine season in 2023 but he injured a knee against Perth so he's the only player confirmed to go out of the team for Saturday's derby at this stage.

Helping ease the blow of losing Pearson will be the return of fellow defender Jordan Boullineau who has missed the past three matches with a hamstring injury.

The other players added to the South Fremantle squad are Toby Dodds, Ed Graham, Jermaine Pickett and George Wessels. Should Graham and/or Pickett make the final 22, they will make their debuts for the Bulldogs and there couldn’t be a better occasion than a derby.

East Fremantle is also coming off the bye last week following an impressive win against Peel in Geraldton that sees the Sharks entering the derby on the four-game winning streak.

Former AFL-listed pair Luke English and Josh Schoenfeld return to the East Fremantle squad as well for Saturday's derby along with big man Eddie Simpson, gun goalkicker Cody Leggett and potential debutants Koen Sanchez and Kale Paton.