Meadows not afraid to aim for Falcons premiershipSaturday, September 15, 2018 - 8:44 AM - by Chris Pike

WEST Perth has overcome plenty on and off the field in 2018 to now be one win from a Grand Final appearance and tough and damaging midfielder Luke Meadows sees no reason the Falcons can't still go all the way.

West Perth came into the season after being losing to Swan Districts in last year's elimination final losing key position players Nick Rodda and Scott Simpson with apparently little in the way of new arrivals.

Then early in Round 4 the Falcons lost the inspirational Kody Manning for the season with a knee injury and then of course more recently has been the off-field financial problems that threatened the club's future.

West Perth was placed in administration but have now come out of that and off-field the club now is working towards getting back on track at its brand new facility at Joondalup Arena, and on-field things have been tremendously impressive in 2018.

The replacements for those departed key position players have been found within with Jordan Mills and Mark Hamilton holding down the key defensive posts, Chris Keunen back to his best in the ruck, and Tyler Keitel and Andrew Strijk starring up forward.

Michael Lourey has been used in a variety of roles with the regular key forward settling down back for a period and now also helping out in the ruck so any perceived issues over personnel hasn’t eventuated for West Perth.

The Falcons went on to finish the season in third position with an 11-7 record and then showed their resilience again bouncing back from a 98-point qualifying final loss to South Fremantle to beat Claremont in last Sunday's first semi-final by 53 points at Joondalup Arena.

That sets West Perth up for a preliminary final clash this Sunday for a chance at redemption against South Fremantle at Fremantle Community Bank Oval with the chance to win its way into the Grand Final against Subiaco at Optus Stadium.

Despite that loss to South Fremantle two weeks ago and the fact that West Perth hasn’t beaten the Bulldogs in the last nine attempts, Meadows sees no better time to change that than this Sunday.

And if they are able to win their way into the Grand Final, he sees no reason they can't upset Subiaco at Optus Stadium either to gain a measure of revenge for the 2015 decider.

"We are just going out there to win. We don’t expect to lose, that's for sure. We are planning on winning and planning on winning everything," Meadows said. 

"But I guess they are as well and I'm sure Subiaco are as well. It's that time of finals where there's three teams left and someone is going to win it, and we think it's going to be us."

Even though West Perth has lost the last nine matches against South Fremantle, the first two meetings this season were strongly competitive affairs with only a combined margin of 13 points.

Meadows is confident that the qualifying final thumping was just a blip on the radar and he was proud of the way the Falcons rose to the challenge to emphatically respond last week with a big win over Claremont to keep their season alive.

After feeling let down by their performance against the Bulldogs, the Falcons couldn’t have hit back better last week and now Meadows is looking forward to ending that hoodoo against South Fremantle on Sunday.

"We felt that the South Fremantle game didn’t reflect our season or the group's skill and ability. We knew we could come out against Claremont and show how we could really play. Our challenge this week is to do that again down there against South Freo," he said.

"We have to accept the challenge and they beat us pretty comprehensively last time. We just have to play our game style and give a lot of run in the midfield, and if we win that battle it will help us win the game I guess."

Meadows is part of a terrific midfield unit at the Falcons that is led by captain Aaron Black and triple fairest and best winner Shane Nelson, but also includes Trent Manzone, Corey Chalmers and Mitch Peirce who are playing important roles.

The continued strong form of Meadows might have him as a potential mature-aged AFL draft pick later this year with his big body, ability to win contested possessions and clearances, and then use the ball well.

But his focus solely is on the job at hand at West Perth and he'll be happy to do whatever he can to help the Falcons earn their way into the 2018 Grand Final.

"We have a good core in our midfield especially with Mitch Peirce as a young guy coming in who can play a number of roles both defending and as an offensive threat. That mix in there is good for us and with Chris Keunen getting his hands on the footy last week, that definitely helped," Meadows said.

"I'm more focused on us winning and if I have to go play back pocket and lockdown someone or if I have to play full-forward, I'm just excited to get there to help us try to win. That's been our goal personally and for the whole squad to win the premiership, so that's our plan."