Round 6 Preview v West Perth

SWAN Districts remains on the road this Saturday to take on West Perth with the black-and-whites not only looking to keep their hot start to the WAFL season going, but also celebrating game 250 for club champion Tony Notte.

It has been a tremendous start to the 2021 Optus WAFL Premiership Season for Swan Districts as they attempt to return to finals action for the first time since 2017.

The signs have been exciting so far over the opening four rounds and while it started off with a narrow defeat to the still unbeaten Claremont, Swan Districts has won its last three games against Perth, the West Coast Eagles and East Perth to sit in second spot on the ladder with a 3-1 record.

Now this Saturday on the back of beating East Perth last Saturday at Leederville Oval by 13 points, Swans remain on the road to take on the struggling West Perth at Joondalup's Provident Financial Oval.

While Swans come into the game with a 3-1 record and can further consolidate second spot with the win, the Falcons sit near the foot of the table with a 1-3 record so they will be throwing everything at the win on their home turf.

Swan Districts will be looking to turnaround a tough run against West Perth in recent times as well.

Since Swans won three straight against the Falcons through 2013 and 2014, West Perth has had the better of the last 14 meetings between the clubs, winning 11 of them.

The last win for the black-and-whites against the Falcons came back in Round 4, 2019 and that also happened to be at Joondalup.

As Swan Districts looks to make it four straight wins for the first time since the start of the 2017 season, there is just the one confirmed change with Matt Riggio going out for Swans injured.

Matthew Germs, Denzel More, Jacob Sideris, Kade Wallrodt and Warrick Wilson are all the players vying for a spot in the team.

Meanwhile as West Perth chase their second win of the season, they have made plenty of changes with Tristan Hobley, Kellen Johnson, Matthew Lloyd, Nathan Murray, Zak Patterson, Mitch Peirce, Troy Yukich and Jason Salecic all added to their extended squad.

At this stage, Ben Delaporte, Tyler Keitel, Trent Manzone and Kris Shannon are the players all out of the Falcons' line-up from the team that lost to Claremont last Saturday.

And just in case Swan Districts needed any added motivation to head up to Joondalup and win on Saturday, it just happens to be the 250-game milestone for one of the club's all-time greats, Tony Notte.

It has been quite the remarkable journey for Notte who came through the ranks of the club in that famous colts team to be drafted to the West Coast Eagles where he'd go on to play two AFL games.

But he has always remained remarkably committed and loyal to Swan Districts, and now is richly deserving of becoming just the sixth player in club's history to reach 250 games.

His longevity, consistency and durability has been remarkable so much so that Saturday's game will mark Notte's 174th consecutive match for Swans.

He was desperately unlucky to lose his spot for the preliminary final and Grand Final of 2010, and then missed five games in 2011, but he has played all 174 games possible for Swans ever since.

Along the way, his flexibility to play at either end of the ground or even in the ruck, and his overhead marking have been a standout as he has racked up a pair of Swan Medals and represented Western Australia on six occasions.

Not once has Notte stopped enjoying his football at Swan Districts but striving to achieve that ultimate success is still a strong motivating force for the 31-year-old.

"The reason I'm still going is because I still enjoy it as well as having that ultimate goal of trying to finish off my career with a premiership," Notte said.

"Winning goes so far and the culture at the club at the moment is really good. Bringing in some experienced players from over east and then you add Lewy with AFL experience it really does boost the group.

"Then we have young kids who are gelling well and winning is the key to keep going. It makes the week a lot easier too when you don’t have to rock up to training dreading thinking about the bad stuff from the Saturday. So it flows a lot easier and makes life a lot easier too."

As for the team of 2021 at Swan Districts, Notte is enjoying being part of a more dangerous forward-line and for the first time in a while, feels like they actually have a squad capable of being a real contender.

"The best thing about our side at the moment this year is that we have a lot of strengths ourselves so we are backing in our game plan now to be able to compete with these top end teams," Notte said.

"For most games, whoever wins that midfield battle and gives the opportunity to the forward-line the most is going to win most games. It's another challenge for our midfield group, but in terms of our forward group at the moment we're pretty confident we can compete and score.

"It's been a bit of a challenge the last few years to kick a high score, but this year we have multiple options to score goals and the workload is being spread amongst everyone."

It will be a full day of action for Swan Districts at Provident Financial Oval starting with the colts match up at 9.10am against West Perth followed by the reserves contest at 11.40am.

OPTUS WAFL ROUND 5

SWAN DISTRICTS v WEST PERTH – PROVIDENT FINANCIAL OVAL, SATURDAY 2.10PM

Radio: SEN