Round 5 WAFL Preview v Peel Thunder

Swan Districts broke through for their first win of the WAFL season last Saturday and now will look to back it up against Peel Thunder in Mandurah on Sunday.

While Swan Districts hadn’t won a game yet this season heading into last Saturday's clash with South Fremantle, the form had been quite encouraging with the three defeats to East Perth, East Fremantle and West Perth only coming by a combined 12 points.

Now on the back of breaking a nine-year drought last week against the Bulldogs at Fremantle Community Bank Oval, Swans will look to keep the momentum going on Sunday against Peel at Lane Group Stadium.

Peel currently sits in third position with a 3-1 record but Swan Districts will make the trip to Mandurah confident of making it consecutive wins.

The league clash begins on Sunday at 2.10pm with the day starting with the colts match at 9.10am followed by the reserves contest at 11.40am.

Swan Districts coach Andrew Pruyn got his first win in charge against South Fremantle last week, and is liking a lot of what he is seeing in terms of what the black-and-whites are doing so far in 2023.

"We were really ecstatic to get that win to be honest. It was the first time in nine years we'd actually won done at Fremantle Oval so it was a huge achievement from our boys really to go down there to a place that hadn’t been a happy hunting ground for us," Pruyn said.

"We sort of took the game on a bit more and tried to play a bit quicker than we had been, but I think it was our forward-line that found a way to fire. They had been threatening in the previous three games but on Saturday they found a way to work a bit better so we could kick a winning score."

Swan Districts rank sixth for points for with 73.5 a game while seventh for points conceding with 72.0 giving up per match over the opening month of the season.

Peel might be just the eighth best scoring team so far in the WAFL over the first month having kicked 72.5 points a game. But defensively and the Thunder have been terrific ranked second with just 58.0 points a game against them so far.

Swan Districts have been the second best first and third quarter teams in the competition, having outscored their opponents by 37 points in opening terms and then by 31 points in third quarters.

However, Swans are ranked just ninth for second quarters and seventh in final terms.

Peel is the best finishing team in the competition having outscored their opponents by 67 points in last quarters through the first four games. The Thunder are then ranked seventh in opening terms, fifth in second quarters, and sixth in last stanzas.

The clash is the first between the two teams since Round 20 last year where a powered up Peel team hammered the below strength Swan Districts by 92 points in Mandurah.

As a result of that, Peel ended up making the finals and got to a first semi-final after defeating South Fremantle in an elimination final while Swans missed out on playing finals in an attempt to make it back there in consecutive seasons.

Prior to that big win for the Thunder and it was the Swans who had the better of the recent clashes between the two teams having beaten Peel on the past five occasions.

Overall in Mandurah and Swans have won 20 of the 29 clashes against the Thunder dating back to 1997, but in more recent times Peel has done well at home against Swan Districts winning four of the last five matches.

Swans' lone recent win at Lane Group Stadium came by eight points back in Round 9, 2021.