Round 3 Men’s Preview v West Perth

Swan Districts return to Steel Blue Oval in Round 3 of the 2026 WAFL Men’s season hunting a first win when they host the also winless West Perth on Saturday.

Both Swans and the Falcons have lost their first two matches of the season ahead of Saturday’s match up at Steel Blue Oval that will get underway at 2:30pm.

Swan Districts have started the season by taking on the challenge of both grand final teams from last year, and went down to South Fremantle at home by 45 points at Good Friday before losing to East Perth at Sullivan Logistics Stadium last Saturday by 20 points.

West Perth have also lost their opening two matches of the season with an opening round loss to Claremont at home by 74 points before being overrun by the West Coast Eagles last Sunday by 15 points at Lathlain’s Mineral Resources Park.

That leaves both teams desperate for a win to avoid a 0-3 start to the season when they lock horns on Saturday afternoon at Steel Blue Oval.

Swan Districts coach Andrew Pruyn has seen enough to be encouraged about in the opening two rounds of the season against the grand finalists from last year and feels there’s clear improvement on 2025.

“I’m pretty comfortable to be honest after coming up against the two teams that played off in the grand final last year so that was always going to be a nice way to ease into the season,” Pruyn told SEN WA Breakfast.

“The boys have been competitive and certainly been in the games before the class and experience of those two sides probably told late in both games so we do have plenty to work on, but there were some really encouraging signs for us.

“We’ve definitely made improvements hands down and we had a clever strategic recruitment where we actually went out and got players that we didn’t have within our ranks and in an age bracket that would fit our group.

“We’re definitely in a stronger position than where we were last year and our list is good, our reserves are going really good and we’ve got depth at the club, we’ve just got a whole lot at the same sort of level and they just need opportunity and a little bit of time.”

There is just the one change to the Swan Districts team that lost to East Perth last Saturday with Will Collins coming into the line-up at the expense of 123-game veteran ruckman Nathan Blakely.

Collins will be playing his first game in the league team for Swans since round 14 last year.

West Perth have made the two changes from the side that lost to West Coast on Sunday with Kai Dehavilland and Darcy Keenan coming in.

Going for the Falcons are Shane Nelson and Sam Rotham.

It will be the Reserves match up that opens the day’s proceedings at Steel Blue Oval on Saturday starting at 9:40am.

Swan Districts have won their opening two matches of the season in the Reserves including beating East Perth by 31 points last Saturday at Sullivan Logistics Stadium.

Meanwhile, West Perth have played just the one Reserves game so far in 2026. That was an opening round win against Claremont by 52 points before the bye in Round 2 with the league team facing the West Coast Eagles.

Then following the league contest, the Colts will run out onto Steel Blue Oval with that match scheduled to get underway at 5:15pm.

Swan Districts have lost their opening two matches in the Colts to open the 2026 season while West Perth have played just the once and that was an opening round loss to Claremont.