Lee and Royals aiming to make it three on the trotSaturday, June 13, 2015 - 2:53 PM - by Chris Pike

FOLLOWING a horror three-week stretch leading into the bye and State game, the best East Perth could have hoped for was to bounce back with two wins following that and co-captain Brendan Lee has been delighted to see that happen and hopes it becomes three against Peel on Sunday.

East Perth is now back up into fourth position on the WAFL ladder coming into Round 12 and could end Sunday night as high as second with a win over Peel at Bendigo Bank Stadium.

That would make a terrific turnaround by the Royals following a horror three-week stretch before the break that saw them lose to South Fremantle at home, go down to West Perth by 38 points after leading by 43 late in the third quarter and kick a record low score in a loss to Claremont.

However, the break did East Perth the world of good both to get things settled again and get some troops back and the result has been a dominant 48-point WA Day derby win over West Perth and then a hard fought come from behind 17-point victory last Saturday over Swan Districts.

That has again been enough to suggest East Perth can again be a real contender again in 2015 but co-captain Lee knows that Peel on Sunday won't be easy to get over for the Royals to make it three on the trot.

"They beat us last time and they are having a really good year so it will be a good test for us to see if we make it three in a row," Lee said.

"Two in a row doesn’t sound too awesome on paper, but I think when we've struggled at times earlier this year to get wins on the board, we are very happy with them and hopefully we can make it three this weekend."

While Lee has been happier with the improved form from his team in the last two games which both came in a five-day period, he knows they still have a fair way to go to be at their best and that good work could be undone without a strong showing against Peel on Sunday.

"No matter how you're going and even if you are winning every game, there's still things to work on and likewise when we hadn’t been winning too many games, there was even more for us to work on in those two weeks. It was about getting back to that brand of footy that we are best at, and to restrict the opposition playing their best footy to stop them scoring," he said.

"I think there's still a long way to go. We are sitting 5-5 and I think other than Subiaco and Perth at the moment, the other sides seem to performing around about the same. There's still so much that we have to get right so from our point of view we still have a long way to go and we want to get there sooner rather than later this year."

Any time East Perth and Peel now meet it naturally brings up talk of the alignments each has with AFL clubs West Coast and Fremantle, but for Lee it's a non-issue and once all 44 players are out on the field in Royals and Thunder jumpers respectively, that's where their sole focus lies.

"I think it's really important for any alignment model to work and I've seen it in the VFL, you need that core group of senior guys and if you have that the club will always be OK because they will make sure that the younger guys coming through get their opportunity, and work hard and they always have the best interests of the club at heart that's for sure," he said.

"We've had the alignment for three years now and our listed guys are as much part of East Perth as our younger guys coming through. It still gets a fair mention in the media from time to time, but we don’t look too much at the alignment side of things. We are very happy to have those listed guys down and they are always eager to play well for East Perth, and they are as much East Perth players as anyone else."

East Perth has made the last two WAFL grand finals and despite losing those deciders to West Perth and Subiaco respectively, Lee is confident that the Royals wouldn’t have any negative memories if they got in that position to play off in a grand final again potentially still in 2015.

"The first year against West Perth we came from fourth and were in the game in the grand final until momentum shifted late in the third, and we ended up losing but we were very much in it and we did pretty well to get there from fourth," Lee said.

"The following year we were definitely favourites to beat Subiaco and we couldn’t get the job done. A lot of people would think that we dropped two big games, which we did, but we still won a first semi, a prelim and a second semi-final in those two years, and for people that would know they are pretty tough to win.

"We haven’t lost confidence that we can win big games. For sure we didn’t get the job done in the two biggest games of the year, but we are still confident that on our day we can beat every side if we play the way we want to play."