Round 16 WAFLW Preview v South Fremantle

Swan Districts has the chance to go into the WAFLW finals from third position with a home first semi-final as they end the home and away season on Sunday hosting South Fremantle at Steel Blue Oval.

It has been a tremendous performance from Swan Districts to turn its WAFLW season around having now won eight of its last nine games, ironically all happening since a first ever loss to South Fremantle back in Round 4.

Swans have secured their place in the finals again this WAFLW season on the back of last week's 14-point victory against East Fremantle at the WACA Ground.

Now Swan Districts has the chance to lock in third position heading into the finals as they take on South Fremantle at Steel Blue Oval on Sunday afternoon. The game will begin at 2pm.

Before that on Sunday at Steel Blue Oval at 12pm will be the Rogers Cup contest with Swan Districts playing South Fremantle as well. It will be the last game of the season for the Swans' Youth Girls team with finals out of reach coming into the last round.

As for the WAFLW contest, it's a match up between two teams guaranteed of being part of finals action that begins next week so it should be a terrific match up.

Swans have won those eight of the last nine games to be guaranteed of playing finals and they will be assured of third position with a win on Sunday against the Bulldogs.

As for South Fremantle, this is their fourth season in the competition and they can't be budged from second position and a finals double chance no matter the result on Sunday having so far won nine matches, lost three and drawn one in 2023.

The last time the two teams played was back in Round 4 of this year when South Fremantle scored a first ever win against Swan Districts.

The Bulldogs won 12.8 (80) to 4.3 (27) at Fremantle Community Bank Oval but Swans are now playing much better football than back then in what was their fourth consecutive loss. Swans have only lost one game since then which was against Claremont.

In that Round 4 match up, Noa McNaughton kicked five goals for South Fremantle with Makaela Tuhakaraina, Zoe Huggett and Casey Byrne all adding two each. Charlie Wicksteed also gathered 17 disposals, Kahra Sprlyan 17 and Lauren Vecchio 17.

Carys D'Addario kicked two goals in that game for Swans while Jess Cox picked up 21 possessions, Emma Nanut 16, Jaime Henry 16 and Hope Ugle-Hayward 14 along with eight tackles.

Prior to that, throughout the first three seasons South Fremantle has been in the WAFLW competition, Swan Districts beat them on all six occasions outscoring them 44.31 (295) to 11.10 (76).

Going back to when the Bulldogs entered in 2020, Swan Districts beat South Fremantle by 42 points in Round 5 at Fremantle Community Bank Oval.

Then in 2021, Swan Districts had a thumping 53-point win over South Fremantle also down at the port with Swans then also winning by 37 points at Steel Blue Oval in Round 9 having held the Bulldogs to just one behind for the game.

Their third meeting of 2021 was also at Fremantle Community Bank Oval in Round 15 with Swan Districts winning by 63 points.

South Fremantle became significantly more competitive in 2022 highlighted in Round 7 when Swan Districts scored just a 14-point win under lights at Fremantle Community Bank Oval.

The second meeting of 2022 took place in Round 15 at Steel Blue Oval and it was another more competitive affair even with Swan Districts still winning by 20 points on the way to another finals campaign.