Career-best Falcons shoot to break Bulldogs droughtFriday, August 31, 2018 - 12:44 PM - by Chris Pike

WITH the likes of Andrew Strijk, Aaron Black, Shane Nelson, Luke Meadows, Blake Wilhelm and company in career-best form, West Perth coach Bill Monaghan is confident of ending a drought against South Fremantle but knows it will take their best to do so.

West Perth has qualified for a fourth straight WAFL finals campaign and seventh in the 10 years with Monaghan as coach as they prepare to play South Fremantle in the qualifying final on Saturday at Fremantle Community Bank Oval.

It's hard to ignore the fact that West Perth has lost its past eight matches against South Fremantle heading into the contest, but there's a level of confidence at the Falcons stemming from a host of players all being in career-best form in 2018.

Nelson, Black and Strijk are all premiership players in 2013 still performing at a high level for the Falcons while Meadows, Wilhelm, Corey Chalmers, Tyler Keitel, Mitch Peirce, Mark Hamilton, Zac Guadagnin, Keegan Knott, Nathan Alexandre, Ben King, Dean Munns and Tyson Moulton have all emerged.

Strijk and Nelson now been permanent fixtures of the West Perth midfield this whole decade and despite always being terrific contributors, it's likely they have never played better than they have in 2018.

Nelson is a three-time fairest and best winner already with the Falcons but has gone to another level in 2018 averaging a remarkable 37.6 disposals a game while Black is also a club champion and Sandover Medallist who is in career-best form as an inside and outside midfielder.

It's also his first season as captain and despite having 169 games under his belt, is playing as well as ever going at 31.2 possessions a game.

Strijk has had a remarkable career having currently played 224 games and he's a seven-time state representative, fairest and best winner and premiership player.

But all of that was either playing at half-forward or half-back, but after the first month of 2018 he settled into playing full-forward and has gone on to kick 43 goals to share the Bernie Naylor Medal with teammate Tyler Keitel.

Add in Wilhelm off half-back, the likes of Hamilton, King, Guadagnin and Alexandre in the back-line, and then Meadows, Peirce and Munns also through the middle along with Chalmers and then Knott and Moulton up forward, and there's a lot for Monaghan to like about his line-up.

"With Black and Nelson, they are only 25 years of age so they are probably in that prime time of their career. Andrew Strijk is a unique individual that is probably playing his best footy, but he's on a limited training schedule," Monaghan said.

"He just needs a bit of a top up when he trains and he's enjoying playing full-forward. He never thought he would even though I always told him in the twilight of his career he should go down there to kick goals. 

"He has always argued that he's too important in other spots but you learn from Auskick age if you kick goals you are the star and he's enjoying his time at the moment."

Monaghan isn’t hiding from the recent record against South Fremantle with the Bulldogs having beaten the Falcons on the last eight occasions since the start of 2016, but the two games this year have only been decided by a total of 13 points.

It's also of no concern for the Falcons heading to Fremantle Community Bank Oval especially considering South Fremantle has won seven of its last eight trips to Joondalup Arena and 18 of 27 overall.

Monaghan knows it will take his team's best to beat South Fremantle and earn a second semi-final berth against Subiaco next Sunday, but knows it will take his team's best.

"We haven’t had the greatest record against South over the last couple of years and there's a little bit of conjecture over whether we actually wanted to play them at Fremantle or try to get the home final because they have an even better record up at Joondalup," he said.

"Last year they belted us three times and this year we've got close to them twice but they just have a large amount of talent across the park. 

"Their midfield is experienced and they have some really good young players, and you throw in guys like Parker, Dell'Olio and Pickett, and they are quite mercurial. 

"We are going to have to be at our best but we've proven this year that apart from Subi and that's not unique to us, that we've been more than competitive against everyone else in the competition. We are confident that if we play our best footy we can win down at Fremantle Oval."

While South Fremantle have plenty of weapons including an experienced midfield including Shane Hockey, Haiden Schloithe, Nick Suban, Ryan Cook, Marlion Pickett and Dylan Main, but he backs his midfielders in particular to match it and give the Falcons' forwards every opportunity. 

"We are generally comfortable that if our mids play at their best that we can match it with all sides. Subiaco leads the way with clearance differentials and scores from clearances, and South and us are two and three," he said.

"There's a lot of stats that point to why those three clubs are one, two and three. We have to back our structures in and our personnel in to a certain extent, but South provide some unique challenges for us and they have some good run and spread players, and a lot of talent. 

"It's a case of doing what we do well but we also need to be mindful and respectful that we can't win every clearance, and we have to do things defensively well should they win it."

It's hard to ignore the off-field struggles West Perth is currently facing too with their future potentially in jeopardy, but for Monaghan and the playing group they haven’t let it be a distraction and if anything they hope by performing well it will help the club's fight for survival.

"The situation hasn’t really affected football at all. From a football point of view, the best part is that it's business as usual and there are some guaranteed money from the footy commission to keep players and staff paid," Monaghan said.

"All the other stuff is beyond what players focus on even though they obviously care about the state of the club. It hasn’t been difficult at all to keep the players concentrated on footy and in some ways the players are using it as motivation to keep West Perth people interested. 

"The fact that we finished third and are playing finals is probably a bonus, I'm not sure how things would have been travelling if we had two or three wins and were going to finish on the bottom. 

"It might have been a bit more hectic then, but the players are just focused on what they can control and I've been really proud of the way they have played footy all year and the way they've handled themselves through what has been a difficult time for the football club."