Round 11 WAFL Preview v West Perth

Swan Districts looks to head to Joondalup on Sunday afternoon in Round 11 of the WAFL to spoil the party of West Perth celebrating captain Aaron Black's 250th game and to stay in the finals race in the process.

Swans take on the Falcons at Pentanet Stadium on Sunday afternoon with the league clash beginning at 2.10pm. The day begins at Joondalup with the colts match up at 9.10am with the reserves to follow at 11.40am.

Both teams come into the clash at Joondalup looking for a bounce back victory with both sitting outside the top five at present.

Swan Districts suffered its second heaviest loss of the season last week going down to East Fremantle by 24 points at the WACA Ground to now slip to a 3-7 record.

West Perth, meanwhile, lost to Subiaco by 55 points with the Falcons having now lost three of their past four matches to be sitting on a 5-5 record in their premiership defence.

That means there's no shortage of motivation for both teams coming into Sunday's clash.

Last time the two teams played was back in Round 3 of this season at Steel Blue Oval when West Perth handed Swan Districts yet another narrow defeat as the Falcons came away from Bassendean with the seven-point victory.

On that day, Tyler Keitel kicked five goals for West Perth and Nathan Murray three to go with 30 possessions.

Chris Jones and Jesse Palmer both kicked three goals apiece for Swan Districts with Jesse Turner racking up 36 touches, Jackson McLachlan 22, Jarvis Pina 21, Brandon Erceg 20, Ryan Kemp 17, Will Collins 17 and Nathan Blakely 17 to go with 17 hit outs.

West Perth has had the better overall of recent meetings with Swan Districts, but perhaps the best win Swans had in 2022 was in Round 19 at Steel Blue Oval by 12 points even though they went on to miss finals narrowly and the Falcons would ultimately win the premiership.

Prior to that and West Perth had won six straight against Swan Districts by an average of 24.2 points with the previous win by Swans coming back in Round 4, 2019.

Even going back beyond that and the Falcons had also won six of the past seven games with Swans.

So even though the majority of the games in the period have been tight and hotly contested affairs, West Perth has won 13 of the last 16 matches against Swan Districts dating back to 2015.

At Joondalup, West Perth has won its last three games hosting Swan Districts and 10 of the past 11 dating back to 2014. The last win for Swans at Joondalup came by 44 points back in 2019.

Swan Districts ruckman Nathan Blakely is having a fine season back in the WAFL this season to revive a career that has now spanned 86 games. He feels that things are starting to come together for the group under new coach Andrew Pruyn.

"We're slowly putting a game plan together and I think we're starting to get different skills, and different techniques that will help us win games in the future," Blakely told 91.3 SportFM.

"Pruey is definitely building something and we're just losing by a little bit whatever the reason is for that. But hopefully over the back end of the year we can start winning some of those close games to give us some confidence moving forward."

Blakely is fully aware of the challenge that now awaits Swan Districts at Joondalup on Sunday with West Perth having the added motivation of celebrating premiership captain and Sandover Medallist Aaron Black's 250th game.

It might be a crucial game for Swans to stay in the finals race, but Blakely sees no reason they can't hand the reigning premiers a defeat on their home turf.

"It's not ideal going up against Blacky's 250th and hopefully we don’t hear Black and Nelson's names called a million times like we usually do," Blakely said.

"We always seem to do alright against West Perth, though, and going up there is a bit of fun. Hopefully the weather helps us a bit with our game plan and we did win in the wet the other week against Perth. That's something we can build on. If we win this then I think it gives us real confidence.

"Last week we probably didn’t get as close as we have been getting to other teams against East Freo, but we have to keep going and I think we're building something here so Pruey and the boys are excited for this game."