Women’s Elimination Final Preview v East Fremantle

Swan Districts guaranteed the right to host the elimination final by finishing in third place by the end of the WAFL Women’s home and away season ahead of taking on East Fremantle this Sunday with the game getting underway 1:30pm.

The winner will keep their WAFL Women’s season alive by advancing to a preliminary final next week against the loser of Sunday’s second semi-final between Claremont and Subiaco at Revo Fitness Stadium while the season will be over for the loser.

Swan Districts locked away the third position by the end of the home and away season thanks to winning their last five matches by beating East Fremantle, Perth, Peel Thunder, South Fremantle and East Perth.

That has the Swans on the longest winning streak of any team heading into the finals but it’s never easy against East Fremantle with the Sharks having playing in the last three WAFL Women’s grand finals including winning the premiership in 2023.

The two teams met twice throughout the regular season with the first being at The Good Grocer Park back in Round 6 where Swan Districts had a commanding 32-point win.

The return clash was last Sunday afternoon at Steel Blue Oval and in tough conditions it was the Swans scoring the four-point win against the Sharks as well with the two teams now doing it all over again with their seasons on the line this Sunday.

The two teams are also no strangers to playing in finals in the WAFL Women’s competition with their most recent meeting being the first semi-final of 2023 where East Fremantle did beat Swan Districts by 29 points on the way to winning the premiership.

Then back in 2020, they also met in a first semi-final with East Fremantle scoring the six-point win at Shark Park and the year prior to that they clashed in the grand final where the Sharks also beat the Swans by 23 points.

Swan Districts star small forward Kayley King has kicked 15 goals in her 16 games this season and now can’t wait for the finals to get underway for the team to try and keep their momentum going.

“It’s getting closer and I think as a group we’re all pretty excited about it while getting a little bit nervous but that helps you play a little bit better I reckon,” King told 91.3 SportFM.

“Working through the season I think we’ve taken everything on board with having another coach changeover coming into the year, and being a younger team we have just been making sure we gel together well as a team.

“I think we’ve hit that form and hopefully we can just keep building on that, and now we’ve had a pretty good run coming into finals so we will be trying to keep that going because we just all really enjoy playing with each other.

“The energy and the vibe at training has been really good, and I think this final series is going to be a good one for us and hopefully we can continue our good form.”

The Swan Districts’ Rogers Cup team will be in action on Sunday to open the finals series when they take on West Perth in a second semi-final also at Steel Blue Oval starting at 11:20am.

The two teams finished in the top two spots on the Rogers Cup ladder with West Perth on top with a 14-2 record while Swan Districts locked away second position with 12 wins, three losses and a draw by beating East Fremantle last Sunday.

That means that the winner of Sunday’s match up will be the first team into the Rogers Cup grand final for 2025 while the loser will have a second chance by taking on either East Fremantle or Claremont in a preliminary final next weekend.

The two teams played one another twice throughout the home and away season with the first encounter back in Round 5 at Steel Blue Oval when Swan Districts ended the winning streak of West Perth with the eight-point win.

The return encounter was in Round 11 at Arena Joondalup with West Perth responding to win 7.3 (45) to 3.2 (20).

But with both teams having won on each other’s home ground during the season and with a spot in the grand final in the Rogers Cup on the line, it’s going to be a terrific contest to get things underway at Steel Blue Oval on Sunday afternoon.