Semi Finals WAFLW PreviewFriday, June 21, 2024 - 9:42 AM - by Chris Pike

EAST Fremantle and Claremont renew their remarkable WAFLW rivalry with a place in the 2024 grand final on the line at Pentanet Stadium on Sunday with West Perth and Swan Districts trying to stay alive.

The finals series for the WAFLW gets underway with the double-header at Joondalup's Pentanet Stadium this Sunday with one of East Fremantle or Claremont to be the first team into the grand final while either West Perth or Swan Districts will play the loser in the preliminary final.

The double-header on Sunday gets underway with West Perth at home to Swan Districts with the Falcons appearing in the finals of the WAFLW for the first ever time after rapid improvement from 2022 to now.

West Perth did lose its past two games coming into the finals to miss out on a top two finish, but still ended up third with an impressive 9-5 record and now will make their finals debut on home turf on Sunday.

Swan Districts won its last two games of the season to secure a place in the finals with an 8-6 record in fourth position which did include a 21-point victory against the Falcons only two weeks ago.

Exciting 18-year-old Swan Districts on-baller Lily Paterson is confident in what her team is capable of coming into the finals.

"To be honest I think we're feeling pretty good as a group. We've obviously had quite a few players go out over the second half of the year, which is not good especially coming into finals," Paterson said.

"But all the players we've still got are playing well and we've got good smarts, good skills and I really think we can do it. At the same time, West Perth could be the hardest team to play against so it's not going to be easy and we'll see how this weekend goes."

That all leads into the second semi-final with East Fremantle playing Claremont with the winner to be the first team into the grand final for 2024 while the loser will have a second chance in the preliminary final.

It's a remarkable history the two teams share with East Fremantle going through the 2022 season on a 15-game winning streak before Claremont shocked them in the grand final to win the premiership.

The roles were reversed in 2023 with the Tigers dominating until grand final day with the Sharks getting revenge and claiming the premiership.

The two teams have now split their two meetings this season as well with East Fremantle coming into the finals on an 11-game winning streak having finished in top spot with a 13-1 record.

Claremont finished second at 11-3 having steadied the ship with the last three wins of which premiership winning midfielder Sarah Viney was part of.

She now senses the feeling of excitement at Tigerland entering another finals series.

"It's really exciting knowing the finals are about to start. You can't hide from the fact that the finals series is completely different from the regular season, it's almost like a completely different competition," Viney said.

"It's one of those things where you have to embrace how exciting it is to be part of the finals and knowing you're all going to go out there really hard.

"But it's still a game of football and we still need to make sure we have that composure so it's about trying to figure out the balance of nerves and experience, and replicating in the right way so we can perform on the day."

FIRST SEMI-FINAL: WEST PERTH v SWAN DISTRICTS – PENTANET STADIUM, SUNDAY 11.05AM

SECOND SEMI-FINAL: EAST FREMANTLE v CLAREMONT – PENTANET STADIUM, SUNDAY 1.10PM