TABtouch Team of Round 20Wednesday, August 28, 2019 - 2:28 PM - by Chris Pike

WITH such a hotly contested season, finals positions were always destined to come down to the last round in the WAFL and that's how it turned out with West Coast Eagles winning to eliminate Perth while there were Round 20 wins for Subiaco, South Fremantle, Claremont and Peel Thunder.

All 10 teams in the WAFL this season have had their moments and even though Swan Districts, East Perth, East Fremantle and Peel Thunder were out of the finals race come Round 20, they had all been in contention at one point and were keen to finish their campaigns on a high.

And Peel was able to do just that by beating Perth 12.12 (84) to 12.9 (81) at Mandurah's David Grays Arena to mean that the only way the Demons would still play finals was with a Sunday loss for the West Coast Eagles.

Other Saturday results saw South Fremantle guarantee second position by holding on to beat West Perth 12.12 (84) to 12.8 (80) at HBF Arena, Claremont hammer Swan Districts 23.6 (144) to 5.8 (38) at Revo Fitness Stadium, and Subiaco beat East Perth 18.12 (120) to 8.5 (53) at Leederville Oval.

All eyes were on Lathlain's Mineral Resources Park on Sunday and the West Coast Eagles did enough to beat East Fremantle 12.10 (82) to 8.11 (59) and guarantee a finals berth at the expense of Perth.

The Round 20 results meant Subiaco (17-1) finished clear top the ladder to earn a break in the first week of the finals with South Fremantle (13-5) second and Claremont (12-6) third.

West Coast Eagles (9-9) finished fourth and West Perth (9-9) fifth.

That sets up the first week of the finals with South Fremantle playing Claremont in a qualifying final on Saturday at Fremantle Community Bank Oval. West Perth and West Coast Eagles will do battle in an elimination final on Sunday at Joondalup's HBF Arena.

Perth (9-9) finished sixth to see their finals drought back to 1997 continue ahead of Peel Thunder (7-11), East Fremantle (5-13), East Perth (5-13) and Swan Districts (4-14).

PLAYER OF THE ROUND – IAN RICHARDSON
Claremont might not have had a lot to gain on Saturday but that didn’t stop them turning on quite the performance and at the centre of that was co-captain Ian Richardson who kicked his biggest haul of goals in eight years.

Richardson has remained a key player throughout his career at Claremont but after he started out kicking big hauls of goals early on, he has turned more into a high leading half-forward in the second half of his career.

He was accustomed to kicking big bags early days including seven on four occasions, three of which took place in 2008 and the other in 2011, while he had also kicked six goals another three times but none since 2010.

So without having kicked more than five goals in a game since 2012, that all changed for the 31-year-old on Saturday afternoon at the newly named Revo Fitness Stadium as he turned back on the clock against one of the great rivals of his career, Swan Districts.

While Claremont was unlikely to move from third position on the ladder no matter the result on Saturday against Swan Districts, it will prove a great confidence-booster for the team with the 104-point win and for Richardson with his standout performance.

Richardson finished the afternoon with quite the dominant display defying that he is now a 226-game veteran of the WAFL with 19 possessions 13 marks and six goals.

Even the fact that he kicked six goals straight was a big deal for Richardson whose radar hasn’t always been spot on in front of goals in recent years.

Since being tremendously accurate kicking 97.51 across the 2012 and 2013 seasons, Richardson took a year off to travel in 2014 and since he's been back he had only kicked 111.97 in 96 matches.

But Saturday was a reminder of just how dangerous a threat Richardson remains in Claremont's forward-line and just in time for another finals assault.

Players of the Round
Round 1 – Kyal Horsley (Subiaco)
Round 2 –  Anton Hamp (Claremont)
Round 3 – Haiden Schloithe (South Fremantle)
Round 4 – Brant Colledge (Perth)
Round 5 – Tony Notte (Swan Districts)
Round 6 – Rohan Kerr (East Perth)
Round 7 – Mitch Peirce (West Perth)
Round 8 – Clint Jones (Perth)
Round 9 – Lachlan Delahunty (Subiaco)
Round 10 – Nick Suban (South Fremantle)
Round 11 – Tyler Keitel (West Perth)
Round 12 – Josh Smith (West Coast Eagles)
Round 13 – Jackson Ramsay (East Perth)
Round 14 – Kane Mitchell (Claremont)
Round 15 – Bailey Banfield (Peel Thunder)
Round 16 – Jye Bolton (Claremont)
Round 17 – Ben Sokol (Subiaco)
Round 18 – Jonathon Griffin (East Fremantle)
Round 19 – Jesse Turner (Swan Districts)
Round 20 – Ian Richardson (Claremont)

TABtouch TEAM OF THE ROUND
BACK: Tobe Watson (PT), Haydn Busher (C), Jordan Lockyer (S)
HALF-BACK: Lachlan Martinis (C), Tony Notte (SD), Michael Sinclair (P)
CENTRE: Brendon Ah Chee (WC), Ben Howlett (PT), Kane Mitchell (C) 
HALF-FORWARD: Ian Richardson (C), Lachlan Delahunty (S), Ryan Borchet (S), 
FORWARD: Andrew Strijk (WP), Mason Shaw (SF), Ben Sokol (S)
RUCK: Brock Higgins (SF), Jye Bolton (C), Jacob Dragovich (SF)
INTERCHANGE: Declan Mountford (C), Ben Hancock (PT), Clint Jones (P), Dylan Main (SF)

UNLUCKY BUNCH
There were plenty of players who delivered tremendous performances across Round 20 but couldn’t quite fit into the Team of the Round, including:

West Perth's Corey Chalmers, Aaron Black, Shane Nelson and Mitch Peirce.

South Fremantle's Jake Florenca, Kade Stewart and Noah Strom.

Peel Thunder's Sam Sturt, Brett Bewley, Tom North, Jackson Merrett and Haydn Matthews.

Perth's Blake Johnson, Matthew Rogers, Corey Yeo, Brant Colledge, Matthew Taylor and Jacob Payne.

Claremont's Jack Bradshaw, Alec Waterman, Ryan Lim, Jared Hardisty, Bailey Rogers and Jack Beeck.

Swan Districts' Brayden Noble, Josh Cipro, Jesse Turner, Mitch Howlett and Corey Gault.

East Perth's Eddie Simpson, Tom Gorter, Jackson Ramsay, Stan Wright, Nathan Blee, Nelson Waite, Kye Willcocks and Ajang Ajang.

Subiaco's Kyal Horsley, Max Walters, Harry Marsh, Justin Joyce and Greg Clark.

East Fremantle's Tom Bennett, Matthew Jupp, Kody Manning, Sean Fletcher and Blaine Boekhorst.

West Coast Eagles' Matthew Allen, Hamish Brayshaw, Chaz Flint, Will Schofield, Tom Cole, Josh Rotham and Francis Watson.