WAFL Round 3 PreviewFriday, April 4, 2014 - 2:55 PM - by Chris Pike

ROUND 3 of the 2014 WAFL season will again feature a Friday night clash at Fremantle Oval followed by three crucial matches on Saturday with two of the games pitting a winless team up against an unbeaten one.

The round begins on Friday night when the winless South Fremantle hosts the unbeaten East Perth at Fremantle Oval.

Then on Saturday, Claremont plays Subiaco at East Fremantle Oval, Swan Districts takes on Peel Thunder at Bassendean's Steel Blue Oval and the winless West Perth does battle with the unbeaten Perth at Arena Joondalup.

East Fremantle has the bye.

SOUTH FREMANTLE v EAST PERTH – FREMANTLE OVAL, FRIDAY 7.00PM
Selected teams

South Fremantle returns to Fremantle Oval for its second night game in seven days this Friday with a big task against an unbeaten East Perth, but with every confidence of getting its first win on the board for 2014.

The Bulldogs come into the Round 3 clash on Friday night after a 38-point loss to Subiaco and five-point defeat to Perth after leading by 44 points early in the second quarter in Kris Miller's 300th WAFL match.

Meanwhile, the Royals are unbeaten following wins over Peel Thunder and Swan Districts to open the season coming off last year's grand final appearance.

While overall over the past decade South Fremantle has generally enjoyed Friday night matches at Fremantle Oval winning 23 of the 35, recent years hasn’t been as kind to the Bulldogs under lights at the port.

Including last week's five-point loss to Perth, South Fremantle has lost its last five Friday night matches at Fremantle but have won three straight games on Saturday nights so winning under lights isn’t a concern.

South Fremantle has hosted East Perth five times in Friday night games as well with the Bulldogs winning all of them over the past decade.

And since the Royals ended the Bulldogs' 15-game winning run over South Fremantle in Round 9, 2012, East Perth went on to win three straight against South Fremantle won a high-scoring thriller by 12 points in Round 23 last year at Fremantle Oval.

South Fremantle's chances against East Perth won't be helped either with former AFL big man James Sellar ruled out with a knee injury.

He has played mostly in the ruck over the first two weeks and been in good form averaging 14.5 possessions and 29.5 hit outs game, but now his absence leaves a huge task for former Royal Brock Higgins in his third game for South Fremantle and first against his old side.

Higgins played 31 matches at East Perth over the last three seasons before crossing to South Fremantle over the summer and he now has the task of taking on Paul Johnson and Scott Lycett in the ruck on Friday night.

He will be supported by Alistair Gillespie who comes in for his first league game of the season to both back up Higgins in the ruck, and to also take the place up forward of Paul Mugambwa who has also been ruled out of the game after rolling his ankle last Friday night against Perth.

As well as Gillespie coming into the South Fremantle team to face the Royals, 90-game veteran Toby Bairstow, recruit Steve Mills and Mitch Carter are pressing for selection with Traye Bennell and Mitch Banks a chance to make their league debuts.

Meanwhile, East Perth welcomes back Mark Hutchings for his first game in Royals colours since Round 18, 2009.

He was drafted to St Kilda and then upon return signed with West Perth which culminated in winning the Simpson Medal in last year's grand final win over East Perth.

However, still listed at West Coast he returns to the Royals this year and will play his first match of the season on Friday night following a back injury.

Steven Wityk, Matt Gordon, Callum Hart, Julian Locantro and Will Magginness are all in the mix to come into the East Perth team too, but even though Lycett, Will Schofield and Dom Sheed have been named out, all are expected to still play for the Royals.

Hard-running wingman Steven Payne and outstanding lockdown defender Kyle Anderson also celebrate their 50th games for the Royals on Friday night.

CLAREMONT v SUBIACO – EAST FREMANTLE OVAL, SATURDAY 12.30PM
Selected teams

Subiaco sits atop the WAFL ladder while Claremont is coming off a terrific win over the reigning premiers leading into Saturday's clash at a foreign venue for both sides, and at a different bounce down time.

With Claremont Oval being redeveloped and the Showgrounds not yet ready for WAFL football, Claremont has shifted its home game in Round 3 against Subiaco to East Fremantle Oval.

The game will also start at the earlier time of 12.30pm with the aim of allowing spectators the chance to watch their WAFL team in action and then get to Patersons Stadium to watch West Coast face St Kilda as well.

Subiaco has been outstanding to start the 2014 season with a 38-point win over South Fremantle in Round 1 at Leederville's Medibank Stadium and then a 56-point thumping of East Fremantle in Geraldton last week.

The performances have been impressive with experienced players like Shaun Hildebrandt and Wayde Twomey outstanding, recruits Shane Yarran, Matt Boland and Lachlan Delahunty impressive and young players Rhys Waters, Justin Joyce, Simon Moore and Hayden Kennedy playing well.

The Lions have also done well limiting the impact of the opposition on the scoreboard with South Fremantle kicking 9.19 and East Fremantle 6.16. Giving up a combined 15.35 has certainly helped Subiaco's cause in the first two rounds.

Claremont had a horror start to the season with a 65-point loss to Perth at Lathlain Park before bouncing back last week holding West Perth scoreless in the final term to win by 12 points.

While Luke Blackwell, Jake Murphy and Andrew Foster were outstanding, it was the performances of Maximillian Bentley, Jack Richardson, Darcy Cameron, Brenden Abbott and Tom Ledger that was most encouraging for Claremont.

Despite the loss of experienced premiership players coming into 2014 and with the likes of Trinity Handley still being out injured, there is plenty of pressure on for spots at Claremont coming into this week's clash with Subiaco.

Last week in the reserves against West Perth, Corey Yeo was outstanding with 39 possessions while Sam Fong picked up 20 and Keifer Yu 30 to all put themselves in the mix to return to come into the league side.

Jack Bradshaw could also return after missing last week's win over West Perth with an injury.

Both Yu and Fong played in the Round 1 loss to Perth before doing well after being dropped last week while Yeo is in line to make his debut for Claremont.

The 22-year-old made his league debut with East Fremantle in 2011 and played 18 games over the next two seasons before not playing a game at all in 2013. However, he has now emerged at Claremont and with 59 possessions over the first two weeks in the reserves, is in terrific touch.

Subiaco, on the other hand, has little reason to look to change a winning team after impressive performances in victories against South Fremantle and East Fremantle.

Experienced pair Clancy Wheeler and Rhett Kerr, and North Ballarat recruit Tom Smith are all a chance to come in for Subiaco to take on Claremont, but it also wouldn’t be a surprise to see the Lions go in with an unchanged line-up from the side that thumped the Sharks by 56 points in Geraldton.

WEST PERTH v PERTH – ARENA JOONDALUP, SATURDAY 2.05PM
Selected teams

Reigning WAFL premiers West Perth is back at Arena Joondalup this Saturday hosting the unbeaten Perth and looking to record its first win of the 2014 season.

The Falcons have opened the 2014 campaign with a narrow three-point loss to East Fremantle at East Fremantle Oval and then a 12-point loss to Claremont at Arena Joondalup last Saturday on the day when the 2013 premiership flag was unfurled.

Perth, on the other hand, has opened the new season in tremendous fashion defeating Claremont at Lathlain Park in Round 1 by 65 points and then storming home from being 44 points behind last Friday night to end up beating South Fremantle by five points.

West Perth being winless as the minor premiers and Perth unbeaten as a team who hasn’t played finals football since 1997 is somewhat of a surprise, and it will be fascinating to see if the Falcons are 0-3 and the Demons 3-0 come Saturday night after this contest.

Already without suspended premiership pair Kody Manning and Marc Crisp, West Perth loses 164-game veteran Matt Guadagnin to injury to take on Perth while emerging young forward Matt Johnson has been omitted from the side that lost last Saturday to Claremont.

Former Swan Districts premiership defender and Geelong AFL player Matthew Spencer looks set to play his first WAFL league match since that 2010 grand final and to make his Falcons debut after spending the first two weeks of the season in the reserves.

West Perth's defence will be further strengthened with the return of 162-game veteran Dan Hunt as well after he missed the game against Claremont last Saturday.

Corey Chalmers is also a chance to come in for the Falcons after 27 possessions and two goals last week in the reserves.

Joe Morrow and Kris Shannon have also been in solid form for West Perth in the reserves to be in the mix for selection to make their first league appearances of 2014.

West Perth's inclusion of experienced key defenders Hunt and Spencer will come in handy as well with Perth calling up key forward Haydn Busher to play his first league game of the season.

Clem Smith has made a good start to his WAFL career over the first two weeks for the Demons but he has made way in the line-up for Busher to come in.

Meanwhile, Andrew Krakouer will again line-up in the reserves for West Perth after making his first appearance in Falcons colours last Saturday against Claremont.

He played two and-a-half quarters last Saturday and finished with 10 possessions playing permanently as a forward, and now he will play close to a full four quarters this Saturday against Perth as he continues to work towards making his league debut for West Perth.

SWAN DISTRICTS v PEEL THUNDER – STEEL BLUE OVAL, SATURDAY 2.05PM
Selected teams
 
Swan Districts and Peel Thunder have both had a bye in the first two rounds, and both lost to East Perth despite putting in competitive efforts so both have had incredibly similar build-ups to Saturday's clash at Bassendean's Steel Blue Oval.

Peel was first up to take on East Perth at Mandurah's Bendigo Bank Stadium in Round 1 and put in a competitive showing before losing by 19 points and then having the bye last weekend.

Swan Districts had the bye in Round 1 and then turned up to Leederville's Medibank Stadium last Saturday to lead East Perth at every change, before ending up losing by 18 points.

Despite the loss to East Perth last Saturday, it was an impressive showing by Swans and as a result very little reason to look to make changes from that team.

Jake Nuich and Laurence Grescos are two players who could be a chance to come, though, and make their league debuts as could 20-year-old Jacob Burnham after a long apprenticeship with 43 games in the reserves since 2011.

Peel has had a week off since its Round 1 loss to East Perth, and with Fremantle making plenty of changes in their absence of Michael Barlow, Nat Fyfe and Zac Dawson, that has filtered down to the Thunder.

Fremantle's Tanner Smith and Max Duffy were always going to go out injured anyway, but now Clancee Pearce, Zac Clarke, Hayden Crozier, Alex Silvagni and Garrick Ibbotson are the AFL-listed players out of the Thunder line-up to face Swans.

Former Melbourne listed player Kelvin Lawrence also joins the list of outs for the boys from Mandurah.

There are some inclusions from Fremantle, though, including ruckman Jonathan Griffin, Matt Taberner, Jacob Ballard and Tom Vandeleur. 

Dylan Winton, Josh Mathers, Laine Wilkins and Eddie Dann are all Peel players trying to come into the line-up that played in Round 1 also.