Monaghan mindful that Falcons form guarantees nothing in derbyFriday, July 15, 2016 - 3:47 PM - by Chris Pike

WEST Perth coach Bill Monaghan knows that his team's outstanding form winning nine of the last 10 games won't guarantee the Falcons anything heading into a crucial derby with East Perth at Medibank Stadium on Saturday.

The Falcons struggled to start the season winning just one of the opening five matches, including a 60-point loss to East Perth in Round 5, but some players returning and form of others turning around has seen things dramatically improve for the 2013 premiers and last year's grand finalists.

Midfielders Shane Nelson and Dean Munns might play significantly different roles, but both have been equally important in West Perth now winning nine of its last 10 games.

The form of Tyler Keitel, Luke Meadows, Joe Morrow, Steven Browne and Blake Wilhelm, among others, down back along with improved outputs from Michael Lourey, Max Duffy and Mark Hamilton up forward has also been significant in West Perth's run.

That sees the Falcons enter Saturday's derby against the Royals in third position with a 10-5 record and a win would see them move past South Fremantle into second spot and to be just percentage behind the league-leading Subiaco.

However good West Perth's form has been, though, Monaghan knows that East Perth will provide a significant challenge on Saturday with the Royals having won three straight since the Falcons beat them on WA Day by 31 points.

"If you go over the whole season when they've been in good form, they possess the ball a lot and they are a high uncontested possession side," Monaghan told 91.3 SportFM.

"They are a high uncontested marking side and if you track through their best performances they are fairly constant in when they play well. We just need to make sure that on transition we close them down.

"They run really hard from half-back, they load up and slingshot from half-back and we've got to stop that. It's about getting the ball into our forward-line and being able to protect that yardage to put pressure on their ball use. Hopefully we can turn it over and get enough opportunities to score at the other end."

While Monaghan is pleased that the Falcons have been able to improve their form over the last 10 games to now look safe in securing at least a top three position, he knows that things can just as quickly turn around the other way if they don't continue to work hard and do all the right things.

"Our form's been on the improve for a while and we've been lucky enough to snatch a few victories," he said.

"There's not a lot of difference between good form and bad form, it could be a three, four or five per cent difference. We've found that out and we know we can't go back the other way."

A significant factor in West Perth's performances this season has been the efforts down back of Tyler Keitel.

He had some good moments in 2015 in the Falcons run to the grand final but that was on the back of no pre-season and having never previously played senior football before.

So a full pre-season and that experience under his belt was always going to benefit him significantly in 2016.

The results are that he very well could be the best key defender in the competition equally capable of shutting down dangerous opponents, and of taking intercept marks and racking up plenty of possessions to help set up play coming out of the back-line.

"Tyler's really developing well," Monaghan said.

"A lot was made last year of his form and his want to transfer from East Perth to West Perth, and that got quite ugly and put a fair bit of pressure on the kid not only with his performance being scrutinised but he didn’t join the team until the eve of the season.

"So he was playing catch up for the best part of 2015 but this year he had a really good pre-season and his ability to read the ball and impact the contest in the air has been fantastic. He continues to build each week so we are really pleased with that."