O'Donohue doesn't want to let Swans fans down

He gives his heart and soul for the good of the team every time he runs out on the field for Swan Districts and Jehb O'Donohue will do that again in Sunday's preliminary final and he can't hide his excitement over getting to play in front of a massive home crowd.

O'Donohue had to wait until the 49th game of his WAFL career with Swan Districts to play in a winning final two weeks ago against Peel Thunder. He now hopes his 51st game is another victory against the same opponent with a Grand Final spot up for grabs.

The 22-year-old also isn’t afraid to admit there's added feeling coming up against Peel given what happened after that qualifying final. He also hopes that Swan Districts can learn from the tough lessons in last Saturday's second semi-final defeat to East Perth.

Having built his reputation as the best run-with player in the competition now across his 50-game career, O'Donohue can't wait to get out onto Steel Blue Oval on Sunday in the preliminary final with the reward for the winner a spot in next Sunday's Grand Final at Optus Stadium against the Royals.

Excitement building for home prelim

Now that Swans have had some time to digest and review the second semi-final loss to East Perth and the celebrations of Nik Rokahr winning a Sandover Medal on Monday night, the excitement is building for Sunday's preliminary final.

The last preliminary final that Swan Districts took part in was also at Steel Blue Oval back in 2012 with a loss to East Fremantle and prior to that it was a memorable win also at Bassendean against East Perth.

The crowds for those games were 5342 people in 2012 and 11,251 in 2010, and O'Donohue can't wait to play in front of another huge crowd this Sunday with a Grand Final spot on the line.

"It's very exciting, honestly, and these things don't come around too often so to be part of that and to be actually playing is super awesome. I feel very grateful that I'm able to do that and it's going to be awesome to be part of," O'Donohue said.

"Losing a final is never great, but I think from losing that we've learned a lot. We went through what we did wrong and how we're going to fix that, and I think we're pretty certain with what we're going to bring this weekend that's different to that.

"Then playing at home, it's already brought so much energy this week knowing we'll be playing at Bassendean and we have the best fan base in the WAFL. I think it's going to be amazing seeing so many of them down there and the last thing we want to do is let them down now."

Learning a lot from loss to East Perth

While ideally Swan Districts wins last Saturday and is now sitting back and preparing for a Grand Final, but there are some positives to take out of the defeat to the Royals with the obvious one now getting to host a preliminary final at Steel Blue Oval.

The other positive that O'Donohue can pull out of it is that Swans found out what they can't afford to do and how they can't play if they want to win finals which they now hope can hold them in good stead for the next two weeks.

"It was definitely a different dynamic without two of our best players and definitely they are influential players, so we definitely missed them, and obviously losing a final is never great, but what it did was it gave us an insight into what we can't do," O'Donohue said.

"I think everyone has learnt from that and knows that if we're going to put that effort out there again, we'll lose again, and we know we can't do those things in a final and expect to win.

"Now going into this week it's going to have us better off now knowing what we can't do, and then hopefully we can get through Peel and I'm pretty confident we definitely wouldn’t dish that up again against East Perth."

Playing Peel for second time in three weeks

Swan Districts and Peel are certainly no strangers to playing one another having met back in Round 20 and then backing up in the first semi-final, with those two games both in Mandurah with a win apiece.

They now meet for a third time in the last five games with a spot in the Grand Final on the line and O'Donohue and his Swans teammates will take plenty from that first semi-final win and knowing what works against the Thunder.

"The main thing that we take out of that first game is how we won so the things that we did well that game was things like our pressure, intensity and not lifting our foot off the throttle the whole game," O'Donohue said.

"That's how we were able to won so we're looking to try and do those things again more so worrying about what Peel might do differently because we kind of know what it takes to beat them.

"That's what we'll try and stick to and we do expect them to do a few things differently, but I think we're prepared for that and Pruey is such a smart coach so he'll have us prepared for anything. I put my trust and faith in him to have us prepared for whatever they might throw at us."

Extra heat against Peel

Not only are Swan Districts playing Peel for the third time in the past five weeks, but there's some natural added tension between the teams coming into Sunday's preliminary final after Aidan Clarke's suspension following the qualifying final.

While O'Donohue isn’t afraid to admit it would make it that extra sweeter to beat them in a preliminary final on Sunday, he also feels it could lessen the pain that Clarke is feeling for not being able to be out there with his teammates.

"To be honest for me personally it does add that bit of extra feeling going into the game, and I would say most of the boys feel the same way because Clarkey is one of us," O'Donohue said.

"To have him go out of the team for something like that and with how it all played out after the game during the week, it wasn’t great.

"We're not going to do anything stupid or anything during the game, but it's about having your teammate's back and to be honest, to beat that team without Clarkey if we're able to it might be enough to make him feel a little less bad about the whole situation and not being able to be out there."

Embracing role as a run-with player

O'Donohue has embraced his role as a run-with player in this current Swan Districts team and while it's not the most popular role especially in regards to his opponents, it's invaluable to any success the side goes on to have.

What O'Donohue is proud about is that coach Andrew Pruyn sees the strengths in him to trust him to try and limit the influence of the opposition's best player, and in turn it takes great running power, durability, endurance and perhaps most important mental strength to do that job.

The 22-year-old is now 50 games into his WAFL career and is happy with the role he's entrusted with, but he as also proven he can be damaging in his own right and he wouldn’t mind one day being the player other teams try to shut down.

"I've never been a dirty player so for me it's just purely based on competition, I'm an ultra-competitor and to have the opportunity to compete against the game's best I take that on and put pressure on myself to get the job done without any 'dirty' tactics," O'Donohue said.

"Eventually I want to get to a stage in my career where I'm the one getting tagged and by then I would have developed a huge amount of knowledge and skills from the players I've tagged as well as being a tagger.

"So I'll know exactly what the guy tagging me would hate for me to do because I've been there done that."

Thinking about tagging teammates

Given the Swan Districts midfield has become one of the team's great strengths this year with Nik Rokahr and Jye Chalcraft on deck to join the likes of Aidan Clarke, Jesse Turner and Josh Cipro who have been cornerstones for a number of years.

That means that there would plenty of options for O'Donohue if he wanted to have a crack at seeing if he could shut down one of his teammates with this week's Sandover Medallist Rokahr being a prime challenge for him.

However, from what he's experienced from trying to tackle Chalcraft at training, he wouldn’t imagine that job would be an easy one.

"I would say that one guy I'd love to tag and obviously he's on my team so I'll never get the proper opportunity, but it would be Nik Rokahr," O'Donohue said.

"Now that he's a Sandover Medallist that makes him the top of the table for performing midfielders so to have a big opportunity like that would be awesome, and I'd love to take on that opportunity and see what I can do. Another guy I might struggle with is Jye is because he's such a strong little guy.

"In match sims and training drills, he has broken out of my tackles quite a bit so I think he would be one that would really test me. He's also quite fast and can be had to catch, and hold onto so I'd love to try and take him on a bit more."