WAFL Round 5 PreviewFriday, April 18, 2014 - 11:22 AM - by Chris Pike

IT IS a massive round of WAFL football split across three days over the Easter Weekend with two games on Good Friday, one on Saturday and one on Sunday.

The round begins on Good Friday with Peel Thunder hosting East Fremantle at Mandurah's Bendigo Bank Stadium and then at Medibank Stadium in Leederville, Subiaco does battle with East Perth.

The standalone fixture on Saturday sees West Perth host South Fremantle at Arena Joondalup, and then on Easter Sunday Perth will take on Swan Districts at Lathlain Park.

Claremont has the bye coming off two heavy losses to Subiaco and East Fremantle.

PEEL THUNDER (0-3, 8th) v EAST FREMANTLE (2-1, 6th) – BENDIGO BANK STADIUM, FRIDAY 2.05PM
Selected teams

Peel will host East Fremantle for the second straight time on Good Friday with the Thunder desperate for a first win of 2014 and the Sharks out to win consecutive games for the first time this year.

Peel and East Fremantle now look set to make it a traditional fixture in Mandurah on Good Friday and last year was a resounding success with a crowd of 2653 turning out to watch the Sharks end up winning a competitive contest by 23 points.

A crowd in that vicinity again this year would be a massive success as well.

Peel will be desperate for its first win of 2014 following losses to East Perth (19 points), Swan Districts (35) and Subiaco (17) to open its campaign.

While all those have been competitive showings and certainly when leading against Swans by 34 points early in the third quarter in particular, the Thunder have had chances already to win in 2014 and will be looking to finally turn that into four points this Friday.

East Fremantle, on the other hand, had a hiccup against Subiaco in Geraldton in Round 2 with a 56-point loss, but upset West Perth with a thrilling win in Round 1 and then crushed Claremont at home last week by 75 points to now be sitting on a 2-1 record coming into the clash with Peel.

Peel has again named three Fremantle ruckmen for the clash against the Sharks with Jonathon Griffin, Jack Hannath and Craig Moller giving them plenty of size.

It will be Griffin's first game against East Fremantle whom he represented most recently in the losing 2012 grand final to Claremont where he was outstanding with 14 possessions, eight marks and three goals.

Other Fremantle players to line up for the Thunder include Alex Silvagni, Anthony Morabito, Tom Vandeleur, Tom Sheridan, Jacob Ballard and Brady Grey.

The suspended Colin Sylvia as well as forward Michael Apeness are among the outs of the Thunder line-up that last week went down to Subiaco.

Former AFL-listed players Cruize Garlett and James Hawksley would be welcome returns to the Peel team, though, with Russell Shore also a chance to make his league debut.

East Fremantle put in a dominant display last Saturday to thump Claremont at home and as a result coach Steve Malaxos has little reason to look to make changes.

Tim Bristow is a chance to come in and make his league debut while Danny Chartres is a likely inclusion to give the Sharks some more size to take on Peel's giants from Fremantle. Jayden Schofield is also in the mix to return to the Sharks line-up.

SUBIACO (4-0, 1st) v EAST PERTH (3-1, 2nd) – MEDIBANK STADIUM, FRIDAY 4.05PM
Selected teams

East Perth will be out to bounce back from a 100-point loss to West Perth and Subiaco to remain the WAFL's only unbeaten team when they clash for a fourth straight Good Friday battle at Medibank Stadium.

East Perth started the season strongly with wins over Peel, Swan Districts and South Fremantle, but came back to earth with a thud last Saturday suffering the club's first ever triple-figure defeat at the hands of arch-rivals West Perth.

Subiaco, on the other hand, is on the top of the ladder with impressive wins so far over South Fremantle, East Fremantle, Claremont and Peel.

It is the fourth straight year that Subiaco and East Perth have clashed on Good Friday in Leederville with it proving especially popular with the 4pm bounce down and the bar being open while other watering holes are closed around Perth for the public holiday.

The first game at Leederville on Good Friday between the co-tenants took place in 2011 with Subiaco winning by 16 points in front of a crowd of 4757 people.

Then in 2012, 2178 attended in terrible weather conditions as East Perth won a hard fought affair by 31 points before last year, the Lions scored an upset 15-point victory in front of 3406 people.

Subiaco comes into the contest on top of the WAFL ladder having unexpectedly won its opening four matches convincingly with a good blend of youth, recruits and experienced campaigners.

New captain Kyal Horsley played his first game of the year in Saturday's win over Peel with new arrivals Frank Stockley, Shane Yarran, Joel Lathan, Wayde Twomey, Shaun Hildebrandt, Lachlan Delahunty and Matt Boland continuing to impress.

However, the big improvement has come from the youth in the form of Rhys Waters, Chris Deluca, George Hampson, Justin Joyce and Josh Deluca in particular.

Subiaco's four-time premiership winning full-back Darren Rumble is back for the Lions but his reward likely is another battle with East Perth's Bernie Naylor Medal winner Josh Smith.

Fellow defender Daniel Leishman also looks set to return from injury while Reece Blechynden, Rhett Kerr, Charles Le Fanu and Simon Moore are all in the mix to return to the Subiaco line-up.

Abe Davey, Josh Deluca and Hayden Kennedy are the Subiaco players to make way for the players returning.

Plenty was made of the West Coast players that East Perth lost in between a 75-point win over South Fremantle and 100-point defeat to West Perth, and now it is a much stronger looking Royals line-up to set to take on Subiaco on Good Friday.

West Coast big men Callum Sinclair, Jeremy McGovern and Scott Lycett are all in for the Royals as is Sam Butler, Patrick McGinnity and Brant Colledge.

Jarrad Oakley-Nicholls also returns after successfully coaching the WA under-15 Kickstart team to a fourth straight title at the recently completely national carnival on the Gold Coast.

The inclusions of Sinclair, McGovern and Lycett make East Perth a distinctly different looking unit.

McGovern will significantly strengthen a defence that coughed up 22 goals last week against West Perth while Sinclair and Lycett with both help out Josh Smith and Fraser McInnes up forward, and Paul Johnson in the ruck.

Ironically the game will be Sinclair's first for East Perth and it just happens to be up against the team that he was recruited west by in 2012, and it was that strong season for the Lions in 2012 that saw him end up getting picked up by West Coast.

WEST PERTH (2-2, 3rd) v SOUTH FREMANTLE (0-4, 9th) – ARENA JOONDALUP, SATURDAY 2.05PM
Selected teams

West Perth and South Fremantle head into the clash at Arena Joondalup on Saturday in vastly different form, but expect a tight contest nonetheless.

West Perth had a slow start to its premiership defence with narrow losses to East Fremantle and Claremont, but the Falcons got a win on the board over Perth and then last Saturday were irrepressible with a 100-point win over the previously unbeaten East Perth.

South Fremantle is yet to record a win in 2014. The Bulldogs started 2013 with seven straight losses and now have lost the first four this year against Subiaco, Perth, East Perth and Swan Districts.

However, the Bulldogs did have chance to beat the Lions, Demons and Swans but couldn’t take their opportunities.

In South Fremantle's favour is a good record overall at Arena Joondalup having won 14 of 22 fixtures against West Perth at the venue including a tremendous 39-point win there in Round 18 last year.

It is an incredibly hard West Perth team to break into coming off the 100-point win over East Perth, but that is exactly what Andrew Krakouer, Shaun Marusic and Jack Thrum are attempting to do after playing well in the reserves team that also beat the Royals by 100-plus points.

Following virtually no pre-season, Krakouer made a slow start to his time at West Perth but his last two games in the reserves have been terrific and he now looks on track to make his Falcons debut and to play his first WAFL game since the 2010 grand final for Swan Districts.

Krakouer had 26 possessions, seven tackles and a goal last week in the reserves and could add yet another quality piece to the West Perth line-up coming off winning last year's premiership.

Suddenly a forward-line of Marcus Adams, Anthony Tsalikis, Matt Fowler, Kody Manning, Marc Crisp and the addition of Krakouer is a scary thing for opposition teams.

South Fremantle is desperate to find a winning formula after starting the season with four straight losses.

They do add some size and quality back to the line-up from the team that lost to Swan Districts last week with Alistair Gillespie and Paul Mugambwa both set to return.

Each is capable of helping to provide another option in the forward-line to Ben Saunders and Josh Pullman, and also helping out Brock Higgins in the ruck in the continued absence of James Sellar with a knee injury.

Important and hard-nosed defender Adam McIntosh will also return after missing the game against Swans with Jarrod Parry a chance to play his first league game since Round 23, 2010 after some consistently strong form in the midfield for the reserves since returning from his latest knee injury.

James Laurino is the only out of the South Fremantle team at this stage who even though he did some nice things against Swans, having only seven possessions meant he simply didn’t do enough.

PERTH (2-1, 4th) v SWAN DISTRICTS (2-1, 5th) – LATHLAIN PARK, SUNDAY 2.05PM
Selected teams
 
Perth and Swan Districts have surprised many with better than expected starts to the WAFL season, and the winner of Sunday's clash at Lathlain Park will improve to a 3-1 record and set up a tilt at the finals.

Perth has not played finals football since 1997 and despite sitting inside the top-four most of 2013, fell short again. However, they have started 2014 impressively with wins over Claremont and South Fremantle before a tight loss to West Perth ahead of last week's bye.

They now will be fresh and ready to go for a standalone Easter Sunday fixture against a Swan Districts who lost a host of star, experienced premiership players over summer but are playing on great spirit and heart so far in 2014.

Swans lost narrowly to East Perth in their opening game but since have impressively defeated Peel Thunder and South Fremantle at home to show they are going to be anything but easy beats this season.

Recent clashes between Perth and Swan Districts have both been well attended and exciting fixtures including the Demons scoring a controversial win at Bassendean in Round 4 last year, and Swans getting a win back in another thriller at Lathlain in Round 11.

Perth does have a significant out in the form of its only genuine ruckman Mitchell Lleyendekkers meaning that the undersized Joel Houghton perhaps with some help from Haydn Busher will need to carry the load.

Matt Moody is a quality inclusion for the Demons and is set to play his first game since Round 1 after a rib injury with South Fremantle recruit Sean Lynch a chance to play his first league game at Perth after strong form in the reserves.

Ben Power, Michael Sinclair and Matthew Hunt are all trying to force their way into the Perth line-up as well.

Swan Districts is in good form and has little need for change, but Jarrad Blight, Jesse Manton, Jacob Burnham and Jake Nuich are among the players pressing for a call up into the league side.