Reserves Preliminary Final Preview v East Perth

The Swan Districts Reserves have a second chance to reach the grand final at Optus Stadium for 2025 when they take on East Perth in the preliminary final this Sunday at Leederville.

The Reserves team at Swan Districts opened the finals series two weeks ago with a qualifying final victory against South Fremantle before then taking on the rampant Claremont in last Sunday’s second semi-final.

Claremont ended up prevailing to be the first team into the grand final in two weeks’ time, but the Swans now have another chance to get there this Sunday.

Swan Districts will take on East Perth at Leederville’s Sullivan Logistics Stadium this Sunday with the game starting at 11:25am and the prize on offer is to play Claremont at Optus Stadium the following Sunday in the grand final.

Looking back on the finals series so far and Swan Districts Reserves coach Dave McKay was delighted with the four-quarter performance first up to beat South Fremantle in the qualifying final.

The going was a bit tougher last Sunday, but that was against a tremendously strong Claremont team and McKay is looking forward to the chance to earn another crack at them if they are able to overcome East Perth this Sunday.

“Our first final against South Freo was probably our best performance of the year and I thought we were really, really strong,” McKay told 91.3 SportFM.

“Then we versed the Claremont juggernaut and they’ve been beating teams by 100-odd points but we were still pretty close around half-time and then they kicked some late goals, and it was a bit hard to get back from there in the second half.

“Now we come up against East Perth this weekend who we are 1-1 with for year and we got them early on, and they got us about halfway through the year.

“They look like they are definitely building and depending on who they are getting back at league level, and reserves level as well, it will be a really good game and we can’t wait to get out there on Sunday.”

The two teams played one another twice during the home and away season firstly back in Round 2 which was also at Leederville with Swan Districts scoring the nine-point victory.

The second clash was at Steel Blue Oval in Round 12 and on that occasion it was East Perth scoring the 13-point win so both teams have beat one another on the opposition’s home ground so far in 2025.

Swan Districts will hope that trend continues at Sullivan Logistics Stadium on Sunday with McKay hoping that his team that has performed well overall this season to be in a preliminary final can reward themselves by reaching a second grand final in three years.

“Thinking back to the start of the year I probably would have thought making finals was a realistic goal so we definitely have achieved that,” McKay said.

“We started the year really strong and were 5-0 but then some injuries hit and we had a bit of a slump in form.

“Reflecting back on it, I think it’s been a successful year for the Reserves team and quite a few of the boys playing now have had a bit of a berth at league level which has been really positive for the club. So I think it’s been quite a successful year so far for the boys.”