WAFL comings and goings for 2013Thursday, February 7, 2013 - 4:00 PM - by Chris Pike

ALL nine WAFL clubs have been busier than ever over the off-season with plenty of comings and goings with Claremont ensuring it will again have a strong squad and Subiaco, South Fremantle and Peel in particular looking to have made big strides towards improving.

Reigning premiers Claremont might have some big outs including Sandover Medallist Kane Mitchell, leading goalkicker Tom Lee, dual premiership pair Gerrick Weedon and Lewis Stevenson, and retired midfielder Rory Walton.

However, the Tigers have added some quality as well on top of having plenty of players from the reserves who are more than capable of stepping up like Jack Bradshaw, Keifer Yu, Sam Fong, Brandon Franz, Tom Willett, Alroy Gilligan and Jarryd Morton.

The biggest signing for Claremont is of 120-game AFL big man and 2006 West Coast premiership ruckman Mark Seaby fresh off him finishing up with the Sydney Swans at the end of last season.

The Tigers have also added former Essendon and Swan Districts dashing defender John Williams with Casey Sibosado returning and former Palmerston (Northern Territory) and Coburg (VFL) player Gibson Turner signing up.

With Anton Hamp, Ryan Neates and Nick Winmar also committing to the club after losing spots on AFL lists, it's a strong looking squad that Claremont has once again.

Last year's losing grand finalists East Fremantle had little need to make major changes to its squad given the amount of youth that coach Steve Malaxos has at his disposal, and as a result the Sharks have had the least amount of turnover in the off-season.

Luke Weller and Leith Teakle have retired with Justin Monaco moving to South Fremantle and Russell Gabriel departing after one season, but that's the extent of East Fremantle's losses that are of any subsequence.

Dashing wingman Brett Peake returns to the Sharks after the end of his 118-game AFL career with Fremantle and St Kilda. Rhys Cooyou is also back from the GWS Giants with the other signing coming from the VFL in the form of Coburg's James Saville.

Swan Districts has lost spearhead Ash Hansen, inspirational captain Josh Roberts to retirement, Jarrhan Jacky and Marlon Motlop to Peel, and Steve Potente to West Perth making for some work needed from coach Greg Harding to replace them.

Aaron Elari and Matt Rogers have both arrived from Perth with defenders Luke Miles and Travis Casserly returning and Kirk Ugle also back as Swans' look to improve on a losing preliminary final finish in 2012.

While East Perth's alignment with West Coast doesn’t officially begin until 2014, the Royals have already gained the services of Eagles' Jamie Cripps, Cale Morton, Matt Rosa, Scott Lycett and Blayne Wilson. All of whom look likely to play significant time with East Perth in 2013.

The alignment hasn’t been all good news, though, with the Royals losing Fremantle's Zac Clarke and Hayden Crozier to Peel.

East Perth also lost emerging midfielder Nick Kommer to Essendon at the end of 2012, but have regained former fairest and best winner Brendan Lee to add to the on-ball brigade. Lee will also be a co-captain alongside Craig Wulff in 2013.

West Perth was right in the hunt to play finals for much of 2012 but ended up two games out in fifth position and since have lost three stars, Brent LeCras, Dustin Burns and Joel Rice to retirement.

Andrew Strijk and Jay van Berlo are back full-time after losing their spots on West Coast and Fremantle's lists respectively with Rohan Kerr also coming over from Carlton.

Swan Districts pair James Embley and Steve Potente are also on board along with Shaun Marusic from Frankston and Trent Manzone from Queensland.

South Fremantle underwent mass changes throughout 2012 with virtually all its experienced players moving on at one point including Josh Head, Ryan Murphy and Hayden North mid-season, and then Toby McGrath once the campaign came to an end.

However, despite that the young Bulldogs managed to flourish in the latter part of the season finishing off winning four of their last five games to give coach Paul Hasleby plenty of positivity to take into pre-season with him.

Alistair Gillespie (Claremont) and Justin Monaco (East Fremantle) have been recruited for 2013 and could be more than handy second and third options up forward alongside last year's Bernie Naylor Medallist Ben Saunders.

Gillespie couldn’t cement his spot in a strong Claremont side, but always performed when called upon and was best afield in the reserves grand final while Monaco showed his potential last year in the WA Day derby when he kicked five goals.

Veteran Craig White also returns after a year off interstate to add some quality and experience with Mitch Banner signing up after playing with Port Adelaide, Mitch Carter returning from Carlton, Reece Adams returning and Warrick Andreoli on board from St Kilda.

Subiaco also underwent some rebuilding throughout 2012 and now Jarrod Schofield replaces Chris Waterman as coach, and Des Headland, Scott Douglas, Jack Anthony, Marty Smith, Reece Blechynden, Kane Bloxsidge, Conor Davidson and Rowen McDonnell have moved on.

Schofield has made some more than handy signings, though, in the form of former Perth pair Andrew McDougall and Jarrod Kayler-Thomson, former Peel centre half-forward Ryan Herring, ex-Sturt player Tristan Gum and former Fremantle defender Antoni Grover.

Herring and McDougall are both capable of playing forward and in the ruck, Gum and Kayler-Thomson will add quality through the midfield and Ben Randall, Brant Chambers, Chris Phelan, Rob Forrest and Brad Stevenson will bounce back from injury interrupted seasons in 2012.

Perth started last season with such high hopes of breaking its finals drought, but by the end the Demons were much closer to the bottom than the finals with just six wins for the entire season.

Once again even though Perth has made some encouraging signings coming into 2013, the outs are significant topped off by the most recent one Leon Davis, who has cited increased family commitments for his reason to give away playing WAFL football.

Promising youngster Aaron Elari has gone to Swan Districts, Tim and Ben Noakes, as well as Llane Spaanderman are gone after one season, Jarrod Kayler-Thomson and Andrew McDougall have both gone to Subiaco with Liam Smith off to Claremont and Matt Rogers to Swan Districts.

The biggest loss of all, though, is of captain and Sandover Medal winner Ross Young who has decided to return home after 87 games with the Demons.

Chance Bateman has returned to Perth after his time with Hawthorn came to an end with enigmatic Essendon forward Kyle Reimers also coming on board at Brownes Stadium.

Jarrad Irons has arrived from Port Adelaide, Jackson Sketcher from Frankston, Jared Risol from Werribee and David Johnston and Mitchell Lleyendekkers both coming from Peel to join up with new assistant coach, and former Thunder senior coach, Trevor Williams.

Peel has had some major changes over the summer with the alignment with Fremantle announced, the appointment of Cam Shepherd as coach, the resignation of chief executive and the arrival of some players that look more than capable of taking the Thunder near a finals appearance.

On top of Dockers players Zac Clarke, Hayden Crozier, Craig Moller and Matt Taberner likely to play much of the season with the Thunder, Cruize Garlett (North Melbourne), James Hawksley (Brisbane), Kelvin Lawrence (Melbourne) and Paul Bower (Carlton) have signed up after their time on AFL lists came to an end.

Johnny Bennell has also returned to the club with Swan Districts pair Marlon Motlop and Jarrhan Jacky on board as well as Tanner Smith from North Ballarat in the VFL.