Reserves Second Semi-Final Preview

Swan Districts have been the standout Reserves team all season and now begin their finals campaign this Saturday with a spot in the Grand Final on the line against East Perth in the second semi-final.

By finishing on top of the Reserves at the end of the home and away season, Swan Districts earned the week off to start the finals series and now they are in action this Saturday.

Swans will be taking on East Perth at Lathlain’s Mineral Resources Park in the second semi-final starting at 11:45am with the reward for the winner being the first team to advance to the Grand Final for 2026 at Optus Stadium on Sunday September 23.

By the end of the home and away season, Swan Districts finished two games clear on top of the Reserves ladder with a 14-2 record with East Perth in second position at 12-4.

So now the top two teams all season will do battle for a spot in the Grand Final while the loser will get a second chance by playing in next weekend’s preliminary final against either Perth or West Perth.

The two teams did meet twice throughout the season starting back in Round 2 with Swans beating the Royals by 31 points at Sullivan Logistics Stadium.

The return encounter at Steel Blue Oval took place in Round 14 and Swan Districts also managed to score the 14-point victory against East Perth.

East Perth then opened the finals series last Saturday in the qualifying final where they scored the 80-point thumping win against Perth to set up the second semi-final match up with Swan Districts.

From the Round 20 team for Swans that beat East Fremantle by 29 points, Ayden Cartwright, Tom Cathcart, Luke Cotellessa, Otis Harvey, Ethyn Kane, Blake Kelly, Brad Lynch and Tom Smith all come back into the team.

Going out for Swans are Mitch Roche, Basil Hart, McCartney Murdoch, Travis Puertollano, Hayden Young, Ryan Hall, Jake Mills and Soren Feast.

East Perth have made three changes from their team that beat Perth last Saturday with Jack Clarey, Bailey Maxwell and Kade Screaigh into the line-up.

Going out for the Royals are Coby Burgiel, Andre Gullini and Alex Walsh who have all been called up to their League team to play Perth in a first semi-final.

One player back into the Reserves line-up for Swan Districts having had a taste of League football is Cathcart and he’s looking forward to it after the week’s break while fully aware that East Perth will be a tough opposition.

“It’s going to be a real tough game and their forward-line is absolutely killer so they’re going to be tough to stop in that front half, but we’re looking forward to the challenge,” Cathcart said.

“Our preparation hasn’t really been much different than for any other game. There’s no league team so it’s a bit of a smaller group we have training at the moment and we’ve still got the Colts boy coming up because they’ve got their Talent game which has been good.

“We’re just trying to keep it how we have been all season this week and had a bit of a lighter session last Monday, then our full session on Tuesday and then on Thursday we did a few more kilometres without having a game on the weekend.

“We still trained on the Saturday, which was good, and we tried to make that game like so that’s a bit different to how we’ve handled byes through the year. Now this week it’s all just pretty much a normal week to get ready for Saturday.”