Round 3 Men’s Preview v South Fremantle

It hasn’t been the start to the WAFL Men’s season Swan Districts was hoping for but Saturday presents a chance to make a statement on the road to the undefeated South Fremantle.

There were great expectations for Swan Districts coming into the 2025 WAFL season on the back of making the preliminary final last year, and there still is despite the two losses to start the new campaign.

Next up for Swans is a trip on Saturday to Fremantle Community Bank Oval to take on South Fremantle with the league contest getting underway at 2:30pm.

The day’s action gets underway at the port with the Colts match up at 9:15am which leads into the Reserves clash at 11:45am.

Swan Districts started the new season with a home loss to West Perth by 48 points before then hitting the road last week and going down to last year’s grand finalists, East Perth, by 55 points.

The next challenge for the black-and-whites is taking on a South Fremantle team looking rejuvenated so far in 2025 with first up wins against Perth and reigning premiers Peel Thunder.

Personnel has been an issue so far for Swan Districts this season with Aidan Clarke, Jake Pasini, Will Collins, Zane Trew, Brandon Erceg and Seb Bright so far unavailable which did come on the back of losing gun forward Tom Edwards to Essendon late in the pre-season.

However, there are no excuses at Swans and coach Andrew Pruyn knows that with the form South Fremantle is in what a challenge they present, but is confident in what his team is capable of.

“Off the vision, South look really impressive so far this year,” Pruyn told 91.3 SportFM.

“With the list they’ve been able to put together and the experience that they have across the field it’s something that is going to put them in really good stead for the competition, and the rest of the season.

“If they can keep all those guys up and firing they’re going to be a real challenge this season, but it’s also exciting for us to go down there with the younger sort of team that we have. We’ll take it up to them on their turf and see how we go.”

Swan Districts hasn’t lost a game to South Fremantle now since a one-point defeat also at Fremantle back in Round 13, 2022.

Since then, the black-and-whites scored three straight wins over the Bulldogs with the two wins in 2023 and in the first meeting of 2024 before they played out a draw in Round 17 last year in the most recent meeting at Fremantle Community Bank Oval.

The Colts contest gets proceedings underway at Fremantle Community Bank Oval on Saturday morning with Swan Districts currently sitting in fourth position with a win and a loss so far over the first two rounds.

They take on a South Fremantle team who has won the opening two matches of the season as well setting up a tremendous contest to start a big day of action over the Easter weekend at the port.

That leads into the Reserves contest where it’s a top-of-the-table contest between two teams yet to taste defeat in the 2025 season.

Swan Districts has won both its reserves matches so far this year beating West Perth at home in Round 1 and then backing that up with a victory against East Perth last Saturday at Sullivan Logistics Stadium.

The black-and-whites take on the Bulldogs reserves team who has also had a strong start to the season with wins against Perth and then at home last week to Peel Thunder.

The winner of the reserves clash on Saturday will go into Easter sitting clear on top of the ladder after three rounds.