Thunder look to make history on Sunday against TigersSaturday, April 25, 2015 - 12:01 PM - by Chris Pike

PEEL Thunder has a chance to make history by winning four straight matches for the first time ever and potentially jumping to the top of the WAFL, but coach Cam Shepherd isn’t taking Kepler Bradley and the winless Tigers lightly on Sunday at Bendigo Bank Stadium.

Peel lost its first game of the season narrowly to West Perth at HBF Arena but has since recorded impressive wins over East Fremantle, Perth and East Perth to be on a three-game winning streak for just the third time in the club's history and first since 2009.

The Thunder have never recorded four consecutive wins since entering the WAFL in 1997 nor have they ever sat on top of the ladder but both those things could change when they host the winless Claremont at Mandurah's Bendigo Bank Stadium in a standalone Anzac Round clash on Sunday.

Despite Claremont having not won a game this season, Shepherd is fully aware that Peel can't afford to take any team lightly that still possesses premiership players Brandon Franz, Aaron Holt, Ian Richardson, Kepler Bradley and Mitch Andrews, and plenty more talented players.

Shepherd and Peel is looking forward to hosting the clash on Sunday as part of Anzac Round, but are fully expecting a tough contest from a Claremont team that won its last six games of 2014 before now losing its first four of 2015.

"I think if we look at the back end of last year, Claremont won the last six games and had every right to feel as though they would be really competitive this year, and they have been," Shepherd said.

"The last two weeks they have lost to East Fremantle by three points in a real tight one and then Perth are no pushovers and we found that out when we played them.

"Claremont played us in a scratch match and soundly beat us so we are under no illusion that they are a great football club and we are looking forward to that challenge on Sunday."

One player who Peel will come up against from Claremont they will be familiar with is Bradley who has joined the Tigers this season following returning from Fremantle at the end of 2014.

Bradley played 13 matches with Peel last year and Shepherd enjoyed coaching him, and his Thunder teammates liked playing with him, but those fond feelings will be forgotten while the game is being played on Sunday.

"Kepler is a wonderful and really well-liked player and person," he said.

"We will hope that he has a day that we can quell his influence and then at the end of the game he can catch up with us all hopefully after Peel have won the game. In footy you get to meet some great people and Kepler is one of those. We will look forward to keeping that association going."

Shepherd is now in his third season as coach of Peel and after difficult moments in his first two seasons where he oversaw just seven wins in 40 matches, but there were signs of something building if the chemistry could get right between his Thunder players and their Fremantle counterparts.

That certainly has happened so far in 2015 with some Fremantle young players impressing, but more importantly Peel's WAFL-listed players have been tremendous including Josh Bootsma, Gerald Ugle, Josh Mathers, Leroy Jetta, Brayden Lawler and all led by inspirational captain Brendon Jones.

"I think the alignment has just taken a little bit of time to come together. We feel really comfortable as a group together now and we've recruited really strongly with Leroy Jetta, Gerald Ugle, Brayden Lawler and Mitch Gill who have helped our depth," he said.

"We've had good improvement from Josh Mathers, Brendon Jones continues to stand up and be a great servant of the club and Josh Bootsma has come through after his problems from last year and has been a real leader playing strongly.

"On top of that, the young Fremantle players especially the first-year players have all contributors. It's only early in the season but it's been a promising start."

Because of the partnership with Fremantle, Peel is only able to recruit a limited number of players to try and replenish their WAFL playing stocks but the signing of Gerald Ugle and Leroy Jetta is as good as what any club has been able to bring in to their group this season.

Ugle previously played in the AFL with the GWS Giants before returning to Perth, but the classy and skilful left-footer has fitted in tremendously with Peel as has Jetta fresh off almost a decade in the AFL with Essendon.

"We are limited in whom we can attract and who we would actually go looking for to recruit, but we particularly sought out those two young men," Shepherd said.

"And they have actually joined in our club and immediately shown that not only are they very good footballers, but quality young men. We are looking forward to them continuing to have a great impact in 2015 and beyond, and I think they are really enjoying the club as well."

Looking back to last Saturday's 23-point win over East Perth at Medibank Stadium, Shepherd was understandably delighted with the effort of his team especially to control the game in the second half with seven goals to three, and 14 scoring shots to five.

"We thought East Perth were really strong in the first quarter and we recognised Craig Wulff was playing his 250th game and what a wonderful person he is and what a great career he's had," he said.

"They came really strongly at us but to our lads' credit we held relatively firm and then started to claw our way back into the game. We thought at half-time it was going to be a bit of a dogfight and our young men were up for the fight in the second half.

"We missed some easy shots early in the second quarter and as we ground the game out, we gradually got on top of East Perth who are a fine footy club. We were really pleased with the result."

It was an intriguing game last Saturday with East Perth having 82 more possessions, 55 more marks and seven more inside 50s, but Peel finished with more scoring shots and the 23-point win.

Shepherd identified the way the Royals like to play and that's to play a high-possession game with lots of marking uncontested out in space. So he was willing to concede that with the aim of shutting down their effectiveness inside-50, and then hurting on the counterattack and that's exactly what happened.

"We recognise that East Perth are a fairly high possession side and they take a lot of marks and uncontested so we tried to limit the effectiveness of that. We thought that we got relatively control because for their inside 50s they weren’t getting enormous reward and to the credit of our young backmen, they did a great job and managed to not only defend but turn that defence into attack," Shepherd said.

"I think the game was a bit of an arm-wrestle and we got great reward out of our backs and our mids helped in support even though we could have done better in the attack. Stats don't always tell all the story. They are a great indicator but on the day we felt that the effort the lads put in and the pressure they put on East Perth gave us the opportunity to kick a score that would win us the game."