WAFL Round 7 Match Preview

Swan Districts is back home at Steel Blue Oval on Saturday to host the West Coast Eagles and attempt to string wins together in a bid to break into the WAFL’s top five.

Swans are coming off a strong performance last Saturday also at the Bassendean venue to beat South Fremantle ahead of hosting the winless Eagles this Saturday at Steel Blue Oval.

Bounce down is set for 2.10pm as part of Round 7 in the WAFL competition across the WA Day long weekend.

Swan Districts comes into the game sitting in seventh position on the WAFL ladder but only percentage outside of fourth spot with a 3-3 record following last week’s win against the Bulldogs.

Swans played strongly last week to beat a Bulldogs team that has played in the last three Grand Finals to win by nine points and now Saturday presents an opportunity to win and likely end the round sitting inside the top five.

The black-and-whites went into that game last week having lost the last nine times against South Fremantle and were without emerging ruckman Matthew Germs along with Tony Notte whose consecutive games streak came to an end at 194.

That opened up an opportunity in the ruck for debutant Brodie Morris who battled hard for 15 hit outs in an overall terrific team performance from the Swans.

Swan Districts coach Adam Pickering earned his first career win over South Fremantle in the process and was delighted with the consistent effort across four quarters, and with the way Morris stepped up on debut.

“We have a lot of good young talent and it’s really about the consistency of effort for all four quarters,” Pickering said.

“We could have swung Brayden Noble or Chris Jones as a backup but thought he was going well enough to earn his spot.

“We had a plan that South Fremantle would get first use at most opportunities, but we backed the kid in, and he competed strongly.”

Swan Districts is now preparing to take on a West Coast team on Saturday at Steel Blue Oval with the Eagles having yet to taste a victory in 2022, losing all six of their matches by an average of 69 points.

This will be the fifth time that the two teams have played one another and the first since Round 14 last year when it was a thriller with Swan Districts beating West Coast by just the two points.

All four previous meetings have taken place at Steel Blue Oval with Swans winning each of them by Round 3 last year by 39 points, by four points in Round 17, 2019 and then by 14 points in Round 7 of that same season.

Swan Districts comes into Saturday’s clash as both the sixth ranked attack and defence across the opening six rounds while the Eagles are last in both categories having conceded 113.5 points a game and scoring just 44.3.

West Coast is also the worst performing team across all four quarters over the opening six rounds of the season while Swans are ranked third in first quarters, eighth in second, third in third terms and then seventh across final quarters.

Swan Districts will be looking to get on top starting in the midfield with Jesse Turner, Sam Fisher and Aidan Clarke all in outstanding form, with Turner averaging 28.3 touches a game, Fisher 27.0 and Clarke 24.2.

Meanwhile up forward, Chris Jones has now kicked 13 goals over last four games since being moved into attack and the back-line remains a strength of Swans anchored by Brandon Erceg, Tobe Watson, Cian Ehlers and Will Collins fresh off holding Mason Shaw scoreless a week ago.

The day will get underway at 10.20am with the WAFLW Reserves clash between Swan Districts and Peel Thunder before the WAFLW League match begins at 12.15pm also between Swans and the Thunder in a Grand Final rematch.