Round 5 Saturday WAFL ResultsSunday, April 20, 2014 - 1:44 AM - by Chris Pike

SOUTH Fremantle continued its love affair with Arena Joondalup on Saturday playing its best football of 2014 resulting in its first victory with a 23-point upset of the reigning premiers West Perth.

The Bulldogs came into the contest having lost their opening four games of the season and the Falcons coming off a 100-point thrashing of East Perth, but South Fremantle was outstanding all afternoon never trailing at any stage to end up winning 15.8 (98) to 10.15 (75).

South Fremantle has now won 15 of 23 matches against West Perth overall at Arena Joondalup since 1994 including the last four straight, and nine of the last 12.

Ben Saunders starred up forward for South Fremantle booting seven goals after having just seven in the opening four games of the season.

His seven-goal haul came from 17 possessions and just the one mark. It's the first time the 2012 Bernie Naylor Medallist has managed seven in a match since doing it in Round 18, 2012 against Subiaco.

Veteran Craig White was also outstanding for South Fremantle in his second week as a forward after spending the majority of his 162-game career in defence even though his initial time in the league side was as a forward.

White finished with four goals from 19 possessions and seven marks.

South Fremantle's midfield was also outstanding led by ruckman Brock Higgins who finished with 21 possessions and 31 hit outs.

Haiden Schloithe backed up his 38 possessions last week against Swan Districts with another 37 disposals to go with six tackles and five inside-50 entries.

Tim Kelly was also terrific with 29 touches through the middle with captain Ryan Cook finishing with 24 possessions, Steven Verrier 24, Brendan Verrier 24 and Shaun Bewick 22.

Toby Bairstow has also been given a new role since returning to the league side for South Fremantle and he did a superb job restricting West Perth's prolific ball-winner Shane Nelson to just 12 possessions for the day.

The Bulldogs' defence was also terrific with Dylan Ross and Nick Borovac doing good jobs respectively on Marcus Adams and Anthony Tsalikis who combined for 11 goals last week against East Perth. They combined for just three on Saturday.

Ashton Hams roamed across half-back and finished with 31 possessions while Adam Guglielmana had 20 touches and nine marks while doing well defensively on both Marc Crisp and Andrew Krakouer.

It was Krakouer's league debut for West Perth and his first WAFL match since the 2010 grand final, and he finished with just two kicks, six handpasses and a goal. His two kicks at least resulted in two goals though.

Rohan Kerr finished with 29 possessions for West Perth with Aaron Black also having it 29 times, Jay van Berlo 26, Brayden Antonio and Jordan Jones 22 who was particularly prominent in the second half after being moved from defence on to the ball.

Dan Hunt was outstanding in defence spending most of the game on Josh Pullman and shutting him down.

South Fremantle got the game's first goal through former Falcon Bewick and even though they never coughed up the lead, West Perth did threaten a fight back on a couple of occasions.

The Bulldogs' lead did stretch out to 34 points heading into time-on in the second quarter with Saunders and White already having three goals apiece, but a late goal to Matt Fowler just steadied things for the Falcons.

West Perth then did kick consecutive goals for the first time in the match when Andrew Krakouer strolled in for his first major for the Falcons in his first appearance at league level for the club, but that was one of his two kicks only for the match.

West Perth was within 22 points then and as close as 18 at the 15-minute mark of the last quarter, but it was Saunders who continued to stop their momentum. He kicked five South Fremantle goals in-a-row either side of three quarter-time, and the Bulldogs held on to win by 23 points.

ROUND 5 SATURDAY WAFL RESULTS
LEAGUE
West Perth 10.15 (75) lost to South Fremantle 15.8 (98)

RESERVES
West Perth 11.8 (74) defeated South Fremantle 10.6 (66)

COLTS    
West Perth 4.7 (31) lost to South Fremantle 14.12 (96)