Round 7 Preview - Swan Districts v ClaremontFriday, April 28, 2017 - 2:22 PM - by Chris Pike

SWAN Districts and Claremont are two teams who missed the WAFL finals in 2016 but have made impressive starts to 2017 with some added spice added to Saturday's clash at Steel Blue Oval with both coming off losses.

Swan Districts opened the season with four straight victories before losing last week to West Perth. Claremont also opened the campaign with three successive wins but have lost the last two weeks against South Fremantle and Subiaco.

Swans and the Tigers have still made impressive starts and considering Swan Districts would improve to 5-1 and Claremont to 4-2 with a win on Saturday, there's plenty at stake at Steel Blue Oval.

Losing a second straight match for the black-and-whites or a third straight in the case of the Tigers would certainly take some of the shine off their impressive starts to the 2017 season.

Swans couldn’t have had a more disastrous 2016 winning just two games but they have hit back hard so far in 2017 with the return and recruitment of Corey Gault, David Ellard, Jamie Bennell, Ryan Crowley and Xavier Ellis.

That has helped them to start off the season with wins against Perth, South Fremantle, East Perth and East Fremantle prior to last week's five-point loss to West Perth at HBF Arena.

Claremont narrowly missed finals last year and with Darren Harris taking over as coach in 2017, the Tigers opened the season beating East Fremantle, Perth and East Perth, but the past two weeks they have gone down to the top two teams, South Fremantle and Subiaco.

One of Swans' two wins last year did came at the expense of Claremont by six points at Steel Blue Oval in Round 4. But the Tigers were their own worst enemy that day kicking 10.17 and being overrun in the finish.

Claremont responded beating Swan Districts by 80 points in Round 11 at the Claremont Showground before also winning by 54 points in Round 20 back at the Bassendean venue.

Claremont has been the highest scoring team in the competition over the first five games averaging 104 points. That includes being the highest-scoring second quarter team at 30 points on average while also conceding the fewest points in the second term at 13.

However, the Tigers also concede the second highest average of fourth quarter points at 33 while Swans are the best defensive team in the competition. Swan Districts is conceding just 68 points a game this season and an especially meagre 11 in last quarters.

Swan Districts have two significant additions to its line-up from the one that lost to West Perth at HBF Arena last Saturday.

Xavier Ellis has overcome his jaw injury to be right to return and add some quality to the Swans' side while powerful half-forward Matthew Rogers will also return. 

At this stage there are no outs to the team for the black-and-whites.

Claremont will also welcome back some important players and none more so than key forward Tom Lee who missed the game against Subiaco last Saturday at East Fremantle Oval.

Quality half-back Matthew Davies will also return while Jared Hardisty, Tom Shanahan and Jacob Sideris are the other players in contention to break into the Claremont team.

Matt Guelfi and Matthew Palfrey are two players already named out of the Tigers line-up to take on Swans at Steel Blue Oval on Saturday.

SWAN DISTRICTS (4-1, 3rd) v CLAREMONT (3-2, 4th) – STEEL BLUE OVAL, SATURDAY 2.15PM
Selected teams 
Broadcast – HFM (107.3FM)