RD 6 PREVIEW | v EAST PERTH

SOUTH Fremantle will be looking to notch its first premiership points of the WAFL season this Saturday against East Perth at Leederville Oval heading into the State game break.

South Fremantle did open the season beating West Coast before a loss to Claremont but then victory at home to Peel Thunder which got the Bulldogs back to even pegging on the season after their loss of eight premiership points before the season began.

The Bulldogs are the only team to beat the Thunder this season, but they have suffered disappointing losses to Swan Districts and Subiaco since to remain on zero premiership points for the season and needing a win over the Royals on Saturday at Leederville Oval.

South Fremantle captain Dylan Main is now a premiership skipper at the Bulldogs and has 114 games to his credit in the Mighty Red V, but his first 18 WAFL matches were with East Perth after he was drafted to West Coast as a colts premiership star at South Fremantle.

He will now be hoping to help South Fremantle to an important win against East Perth on Saturday.

"I think probably moving forward from here on out every game is pretty much a must-win for us. Stating the obvious but the points loss at the start of the year wasn’t a great start so every game is pretty important and we're trying to treat it that way as well," Main told 91.3 SportFM.

"It's a bit disappointing over the first five rounds and where we've landed, but I'm still looking positive and looking ahead to these next block of games to keep pressing to get these wins and to see where it gets us."

Getting off to slow starts has been a concern in recent weeks for the Bulldogs and Main is fully aware they can't afford to do that again against the Royals on Saturday at Leederville Oval.

"That's probably been the story of our season so far where we've let teams get the jump on us early. Swans kicked the first five against us the week before that as well and now looking at East Perth, they're a pretty good first quarter team as well," Main added.

"We're hoping we can try to change a few little things whether that's the warm up or just the boys' preparation into the game to make sure we're switched on from the start. 

"Because after the first quarter and in the second half on the weekend we feel like we've been right in games or even dominant. We just need to try to control and stem the flow in that first half when the ball's hot and hopefully that will hold us in good stead for the rest of the game."

South Fremantle has had the better of the recent rivalry with East Perth with the Bulldogs winning both clashes between the teams in 2022.

While East Perth did score a nail-biting win by five points in Round 10, 2021, South Fremantle has won 10 of the last 11 clashes having won nine straight prior to that breakthrough from the Royals.

However, the majority of recent match ups have been close with the last four all decided by 11 points or fewer while since a 68-point win by South Fremantle in 2018, every game between the Bulldogs and Royals has been won with a margin of 33 points or less.

Even at Leederville Oval and South Fremantle has beaten East Perth on five of the past six times even if the Bulldogs have generally struggled on the same ground against Subiaco including a loss last Saturday. 

East Perth has been the fourth best scoring team in the WAFL so far this season at 88.8 points a game while placed seventh defensively conceding 78.4. 

South Fremantle, meanwhile, has again found scoring a challenge this season with just 66.4 points a game to only be scoring more than Perth and West Coast. However, defensively the Bulldogs have again been strong conceding just 64.6 points per match.

East Perth is far and away the best starting team across the opening five rounds outscoring their opponents by 126 points, which is 79 more than their next rival.

Things haven’t been as good from there for the Royals with them ranked eighth in second quarters, ninth in the third and seven in the fourth where they have been outscored by 74 points after quarter-time.

In contrast, South Fremantle is just ranked seventh in opening quarters having been outscored by 21 points before then being ranked seventh in the second quarters, sixth in the third and fifth in the last.

South Fremantle is attempting to return to the winner's list as well this Saturday playing at Leederville Oval for a second consecutive week.

From the team that lost to Subiaco last Saturday, South Fremantle has added Riley Colborne, Seth Connor, Toby Dodds, Nathan Spooner to the squad to take on East Perth.

Wessels, in particular, has banged down the door for another league opportunity with another 27 possessions in the reserves last week against Subiaco.

However, regular league players Jarrad Doney and Jake Florenca will need to get at least one more reserves match under their belts before they get the chance to be called up into the league side.

Doney did have 25 possessions and nine tackles last week against the Lions, and Florenca 22 disposals and four tackles but it wasn’t quite enough to earn a spot in the league team to face East Perth.

The only out at this stage for the Bulldogs from the team that lost to Subiaco last week is versatile big man Jimmy Miller.

East Perth is attempting to bounce back from its first two losses of the season and avoid a third consecutive defeat.

From the Royals side that lost narrowly to Claremont last Saturday, coming into the squad to face South Fremantle are Adam Boules, Jacob Msando, Sandon Page and Stan Wright.

There are no outs at this stage for the Royals from the side that couldn’t quite capitalise on kicking the first six goals of the game last week against Claremont.