Round 20 Men’s Preview v East Fremantle

Swan Districts have the chance to finish their WAFL Men’s season on a positive note on the road to East Fremantle this Saturday afternoon.

It hasn’t been the season that either the Swans or Sharks hoped in the WAFL competition in 2026 and while neither can make finals coming into Saturday’s game, they will be looking for a positive finish.

The Colts contest at The Good Grocer Park will get proceedings underway at 9:15am on Saturday morning followed by the Reserves at 11:45am and then the League clash at 2:30pm.

Coming into the Round 20 match up and Swan Districts are sitting in eighth position and East Fremantle are ninth but both teams are on 5-12 records so the winner on Saturday will end up eighth while the loser will end the season in ninth place and only above West Perth.

The last time the two teams met was back in Round 6 at Steel Blue Oval and on that occasion Swan Districts took charge in the second half to beat East Fremantle by 42 points.

The Swans will also be looking to make it consecutive wins back at the East Fremantle venue since the Sharks resumed playing at home last year for the first time since back in 2021.

Clint Hinchliffe has been a tremendous positive to come out of the 2026 season for Swan Districts with the former professional cricketer playing senior football in the WAFL for the first time.

He has been producing 22.1 possessions a game while about to play all 20 matches and the prolific midfielder is hoping for a strong finish from the Swans.

“It would be awesome to get the win to finish the year off and it would be a nice little booster for the lads that we can enjoy going into the off-season, and get stuck in for next year and it’s really important to finish off as strong as we can,” Hinchliffe told 91.3 SportFM.

“Obviously the results have been a little bit disappointing and I think we were hoping for a little bit more, but at the end of the day that hasn’t happened and I think we have played some good footy at times.

“We’ve won our five games and we’ve been in a handful of other games up until at least three quarter-time, but we’ve been riddled by injuries again which I think was the same as last year speaking to the boys.

“Jye Chalcraft hasn’t played a game which obviously hurts and Jake Pasini we haven’t seen much of him, and we’ve struggled to get some consistency with our team line-up but I think we’re there and there abouts.

“We haven’t been blown out of the water very often and it’s just that little bit of maturity and polish we’re missing at the moment to get things done.”

From the Swan Districts team that lost to Perth by 19 points last Saturday, Ayden Cartwright and Kade Chalcraft have been recalled.

Going out for the black-and-whites are Blake Kelly and Tom Cathcart.

East Fremantle lost to South Fremantle by 34 points last Saturday and from that team, there are two changes with Austin Ball and Lennon Marlin into the side.

Going out for the Sharks are Harper Fox and Tom Phillips.

Coming into the final round Colts match up, Swan Districts can still play finals but they need a whole lot to go right and that includes having a huge win themselves.

That’s going to be far from an easy task considering East Fremantle sit in top spot and also need to win to guarantee the minor premiership.

Then even with a win themselves, Swan Districts will need West Perth to suffer a big loss against Perth at the same time should they want to end up in fifth position.

Then in the Reserves, Swan Districts have already wrapped up the minor premiership with a 13-2 record to be two games clear while East Fremantle are locked into the wooden spoon spot too having gone through the season winless so far after 15 matches.