Round 4 WAFL Preview v South Fremantle

Swan Districts will be hunting a first win of the WAFL season after three narrow losses on Saturday in what is Brayden Noble's 100th game where he'll attempt to celebrate at a venue he's never won at.

Swans take on South Fremantle at Fremantle Community Bank Oval on Saturday afternoon hunting not only their first win of the 2023 season, but a first victory at the venue since 2014.

Noble will be playing his 100th WAFL match on Saturday for Swan Districts as well and it will be his eight time playing South Fremantle at Fremantle Community Bank Oval, and he's yet to taste a victory there.

For a host of reasons, he's hoping that changes on Saturday.

"I'm hoping Saturday will be my first win there. We haven’t had too much success down there that way and obviously South Freo has been a really good team the whole time I've been playing," Noble said.

"They've had some awesome players and had a lot of great success, and it's just their hunting ground down there. It's not normally the most enjoyable place to travel to but I'm hoping we can change that this weekend.

"There's a real buzz still around the club even though we're 0-3 and there's an air of confidence that something is just around the corner. I'm hoping that this weekend we can prove that to the fans and to ourselves, and make Freo Oval a place that will enjoy going back to for the future."

It's been a heartbreaking start to the season for Swan Districts with the three losses to East Perth, East Fremantle and West Perth by a combined 12 points.

The positive is that Swans played well enough to have been a chance to win each of those games, and are doing a lot of things right so far this season.

Noble is hoping now it all can come together for them on Saturday for that elusive first win of the season against South Fremantle.

"You can see how close the comp is this year with the three very close losses that we've had so far," Noble said.

"You lose too many more of those and it makes it very hard to get back into finals contention with how close the comp is at the moment.

"I feel like if we can get on a roll and tick off the first win that we've got the team that can beat anyone. We just have to put it together for four quarters and hopefully get on a bit of a roll to get the wins ticking over."

Swan Districts did breakthrough for a rare recent win over South Fremantle in Round 6 last year in a tight contest by nine points at Steel Blue Oval.

However, the Bulldogs hit back with their own heart stopping one-point triumph in the return clash in 2022 at Fremantle Community Bank Oval in Round 13.

Going back beyond last year and South Fremantle has dominated proceedings with Swan Districts in recent times and were on a nine-game winning streak with an average winning margin of 34.8 points.

Prior to that win in Round 6 last year, Swans hadn’t beaten the Bulldogs since Round 2, 2017 which was also at Bassendean.

South Fremantle's dominance recently over Swans has been even more significant at Fremantle Community Bank Oval with the Bulldogs winning the previous nine clashes between the two teams at the venue.

Swans' last win down at the port came in Round 13, 2014 which actually continued a run of six straight wins at the ground for the black-and-whites.

However, since then South Fremantle has won nine straight by an average of 31.2 points but the last two have just been by a combined six points over the past two years.

From the Swan Districts team that lost narrowly to West Perth last Sunday, Mitch Bain, Max Chipper, Matthew Germs, Riley Hardeman, Jiah Reidy and Tobe Watson have been added to the squad to take on South Fremantle this Saturday.

Going out for the black-and-whites are the injured Sam Fisher and suspended Jehb O'Donohue.

There will be plenty of eyes on the reserves contest earlier in the day at Fremantle Community Bank Oval with Tony Notte playing his second game back from a knee reconstruction for Swan Districts.

The 279-game Swans great had nine possessions and three marks in his first game back last Sunday against West Perth.