Round 1 Men’s Preview v South Fremantle

Swan Districts will open the new WAFL Men’s season in style on Good Friday hosting the reigning premiers South Fremantle at Steel Blue Oval.

Coming off a home preliminary final in 2024, it was a challenging 2025 on a number of fronts for Swan Districts in the WAFL Men’s competition ending up with just the six victories.

A lot of that was down to a horror run with the injuries that denied the team having their best players out on the park for a lot of the campaign, but now there’s a chance to make a fast start immediately to open 2026.

The first up challenge for Swan Districts will be taking on the reigning premiers South Fremantle at Steel Blue Oval on Good Friday with the league contest getting underway at 2:30pm.

It’s part of a massive Good Friday day of action at Steel Blue Oval too starting with the reserves at 9:45am followed by the WAFL Women’s match up at 12:25pm, and then following the WAFL Men’s game will be the colts at 5:15pm.

While it is a significant challenge for Swans first up against last year’s premiers on Good Friday, it also presents an opportunity to make an early season statement against the Bulldogs at the same time.

Swan Districts coach Andrew Pruyn knows the challenge not only to start the season on Friday against South Fremantle but then with East Perth next up, but he also sees the opportunity that presents.

“We’ve been gifted both the two grand finalists in Round 1 and 2 so that was a really nice present in the fixturing so there’s no better opportunity than going up against the best two teams in the comp,” Pruyn told 91.3 SportFM.

“We’re looking forward to it and are excited to get it started, and we’re certainly in a better position coming into this season than where we have been and we’re looking forward to having 2026 being far more friendly for us on the injury front.”

On the back of finishing last season with a 6-12 record, Swan Districts have retooled for the 2026 season and a lot of that has been based around a new recruiting approach to bring in some emerging, young talent to fit specific needs.

Some of those will be on show in Round 1 on Good Friday against South Fremantle as well including key forward Jovan Petric, ruckman Lucas Impey and the versatile Jez Rigoni, Kade Chalcraft and Zach Provest.

Another new face albeit not quite in that young demographic is Clint Hinchliffe with the former BBL cricketer making his WAFL debut.

There are also some returnees from injury last year with Swans including Jarvis Pina, Brandon Erceg and Zane Trew.

Pruyn is excited by the squad that the Swans are bringing into the new season and now can’t wait to see them come together first up on Good Friday against the Bulldogs at Steel Blue Oval.

“This year with our recruiting we went and we recruited a whole lot of young players and with the exception of Clint Hinchliffe, all the players are 20 or 21 years of age that we’ve recruited,” Pruyn said.

“Then we’ve got a great group coming through our system out of our colts so the group is young, it’s exciting and we’ve probably had to go back a little bit in terms of education and grounding them to play how we want to play the game.

“It’s been refreshing on that point of view and it’s exciting, and I think any time you bring in a whole lot of young people with that sort of youth and energy into your group it changes the dynamic a little bit, which is always pleasing.”