Round 14 Men’s Preview v East Perth

Swan Districts will be attempting to win consecutive games for the first time this WAFL Men’s season when they play host to East Perth this Saturday at Steel Blue Oval.

Swans are back home to take on the Royals at 2:30pm on Saturday on the back of beating West Perth at Joondalup by 25 points last Saturday as they look to now build some momentum to close out the 2026 season.

The game will also be celebrating NAIDOC Week with Swan Districts to wear a specially designed jersey to mark the occasion which takes inspiration from the mural at Steel Blue Oval that was designed and painted by local artist and proud Whadjuk-Yuet-Ballardong man, Kevin Bynder.

Not only do Swan Districts come into the game fresh off a win last Saturday, but so do East Perth having beaten Perth by 51 points last Saturday at Sullivan Logistics Stadium.

Coming into the game and Swans are still sitting in ninth position with a 4-8 record on the season while the Royals are in fourth place at 7-5.

It will be the second meeting already this season between the two teams after back in Round 2 at Leederville it was East Perth finishing strongly to beat Swan Districts by 20 points.

That made it four straight losses for Swans against the Royals with their last win over them a one-point thriller back in Round 12, 2024 at Steel Blue Oval.

Caleb Ernst is providing himself an important versatile member of the Swan Districts team in his first full season and is looking forward to the chance to try and build on the momentum from last week’s win over West Perth.

“It will be good to take a bit of momentum into the game for us from last week and I know they’ve got a few injuries at the moment like we do so it will be a competitive game,” Ernst said.

“If we can get two on the trot that would be nice and keep building towards the back end of the year.

“We’ve got a couple of pretty big opponents still to come so if we can jag a couple of unexpected wins there I’m sure it will do plenty for the playing group going towards the pre-season in terms of building confidence.”

Coming off the win at Joondalup last week to West Perth, Swan Districts have two huge inclusions with Jiah Reidy and Zane Trew back into the line-up.

The unlucky pair to make way for them to take on the Royals are Luke Cotellessa and Otis Harvey.

East Perth will be looking to back up a big win over Perth and have not made any changes to that side with Coby Burgiel, Brody Delaney, Harrison Macreadie and Jacob Spasevski their emergencies for the clash with Swans.

The day’s action at Steel Blue Oval on Saturday will get underway with the Colts contest between Swan Districts and East Perth starting at 9am.

Swans come into the clash trying to respond to last Saturday night’s loss to West Perth at Joondalup while East Perth also suffered a loss at home a week ago to Perth.

Coming into Round 14 in the Colts and the two teams currently occupy the bottom two spots on the ladder as well with the Swans holding a 3-7 record and the Royals are 2-8, but at the same time, the black-and-whites have the chance to finish the weekend in fifth spot if other results fall their way.

That leads into the Reserves contest at Steel Blue Oval beginning at 11:30am with Swan Districts looking to keep their perfect season going having so far won all matches of 2026.

However, unlike the Colts where it’s a battle of the bottom two teams, this one pits the top two sides up against one another with East Perth now sitting in second place with a 7-3 record.

Both teams are fresh off wins last week as well with Swan Districts beating West Perth at Joondalup in a five-point thriller while the Royals beat Perth by 43 points.