Round 5 Women’s Preview v West Perth

Swan Districts is back home in Round 5 of the WAFL Women’s season to commemorate ANZAC Day and looking for a measure of revenge on West Perth when they clash at Steel Blue Oval.

Swans saw their season ended at the hands of West Perth in the first semi-final last year and now the two teams will meet for the first time since then on Saturday afternoon at Steel Blue Oval.

The game gets underway at 12:10pm, before the Rogers Cup clash for Round 5 also between Swan Districts and West Perth to be played on Sunday morning back at Steel Blue Oval.

Coming into Saturday’s WAFL Women’s match up and Swan Districts is sitting in fourth position with a 2-1 record while West Perth is sixth at 1-2 so it is an important early season clash for both teams.

Swans are looking to back up last week’s seven-point win in Mandurah against Peel Thunder while the Falcons had the bye over Easter and prior to that scored their first win of the season by 59 points against competition newcomers Perth.

West Perth joined the WAFL Women’s competition back in the 2022 season and Swan Districts dominated the early meetings and won the first four encounters.

West Perth broke through for a first win against Swans in the opening meeting of 2024 before the black-and-whites squared the ledger in the home and away season, but the Falcons then won the first semi-final in their first ever WAFL Women’s finals match.

Swan Districts WAFL Women’s coach Jason Burton is looking forward to taking on the Falcons while fully aware of how talented and dangerous of an opponent they are.

“They obviously took care of us in that final last year, but it’s a different game and a different style I suppose from what we encountered that day,” Burton told 91.3 SportFM.

“But they have some great players and they keep improving. Their Rogers Cup team has been terrific for two or three years and I don’t think they’ve lost a game so their younger group are coming in and adding to their senior group.

“So we’re mindful of that and it will be exciting, and a good game of footy. It’s another one where I don’t know where we sit compared with them. We want to be confident but this will test us and we’ll see where we are at in the competition.”

Burton also likes the depth of talent he has to work with in this Swan Districts team for 2025.

“We’ve got a number of good players that we trust within our team,” Burton added.

“Jaime Henry spent last year over in the VFL after being with us all throughout her junior times, and she comes back still only 20 years old but is super important for us as a midfielder with a big, strong body who can win those hard balls.

“And then you’ve got the opposite end of the spectrum with Em McGuire who has played AFL footy as a strong, key forward and a big target down there for us.

“We’re pretty excited with our group and we still have some very young players still learning the game, but someone like Luka Davis is really maturing and is still only 19.

“Kayla King is a little whippet who runs around the entire ground and is a very smart footballer. So for us it’s more of a team aspect in that we don’t rely on any one or two people to dominate a game. We do trust that we’ve got a lot more depth than hopefully some of the other teams have.”

The Rogers Cup match up will then take place on Sunday also at Steel Blue Oval starting at 10am with Swan Districts looking to build on last Saturday’s 24-point victory in Mandurah against Peel Thunder.

That improved Swans to a 2-1 record to start the season in the Rogers Cup to sit in fifth position coming into the Sunday match up with the undefeated reigning premiers West Perth.

The Falcons have started the season winning their first three matches on the back of going through each of the previous two seasons undefeated on the way to winning the premierships in 2023 and 2024.

The last time West Perth lost a game in the Rogers Cup was a one-point defeat against Subiaco on Sunday May 22, 2022.