INTERNATIONAL FOOTBALL FESTIVAL PREVIEW V SUBIACO

A GRAND final rematch and the annual International Football Festival all add up to a huge day on Saturday at HBF Arena with West Perth hosting Subiaco.

The league match between the Falcons and Lions will take place at 2.40pm on Saturday and broadcast live on 7mate. Meanwhile, the 16s and colts teams play on Friday night and the reserves will play Saturday at 11am.

The Falcons and Lions met in last year's grand final with Subiaco going on to win a second straight WAFL premiership with a 66-point victory.

This will be the first time they have met since that day when they do battle at HBF Arena.

West Perth opened its 2016 campaign with a disappointing 35-point loss to South Fremantle at Fremantle Community Bank Oval before bouncing back last Saturday with a 41-point victory over Perth at HBF Arena.

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Subiaco, meanwhile, has started 2016 strongly once again with a hard fought eight-point victory over Peel Thunder at Bendigo Bank Stadium and then an impressive 31-point win over Medibank Stadium co-tenants East Perth on Good Friday.

And as if the grand final rematch wasn’t enough of a reason to make it a contest to look forward to, it's also the annual International Football Festival that West Perth hosts at HBF Arena.

This year both West Perth and Subiaco will wear specially designed jumpers for the occasion with plenty of activities planned throughout the day at HBF Arena including a citizenship ceremony, international food stalls and a heap of fun things for the kids to take part in.

The first International Football Festival contest took place back in 2012 at HBF Arena with Subiaco winning a thriller over West Perth by two points in front of a crowd of 6044.

Then in 2013, East Fremantle was West Perth's opponent with the Sharks upsetting the premiership bound Falcons. Another good crowd of 6195 turned out for the occasion.

Subiaco has been consolidated as the regular opponent since with 5362 watching as the Lions won by 25 points in 2014 and then last year, 7849 people watched as the Falcons prevailed by 10 points.

To coincide with the International Football Festival, Russian-born Seva Mozhaev will make his return for the first time since Round 23, 2014.

He suffered a knee injury that ruined his 2015 but he is back for 2016 and following 61 hit outs in tough conditions in the reserves last week against Perth, he is into the Falcons team to face the Lions with Chris Keunen ruled out with a knee injury.

Another big man Mark Hamilton could also come back into the West Perth team with that decision likely to depend on the conditions on Saturday at HBF Arena.

Kody Manning is another important member of West Perth's team who hasn’t been able to get up after suffering an injury last week against Perth while at this stage Max Duffy and Rohan Kerr appear to be right to take their places in the line-up.

Blake Wilhelm is likely to return straight back into the league side following 24 possessions and six inside-50 entries in the reserves last week.

Nathan Alexandre is in the mix for his league debut as well with James Batterham also a chance to play following 14 disposals and 10 tackles last week in the reserves.

Subiaco has begun the season impressively with the wins over the Thunder and Royals so there is little reason for coach Jarrad Schofield to look to make changes with the returning Greg Broughton still unavailable for selection.

There are no outs to the Lions team at this stage from the line-up that beat East Perth on Good Friday but James Garcia, Shaquille McKenzie and Justin Joyce have been added to the squad.

Joyce collected 29 possessions last week in the reserves for Subiaco against East Perth while McKenzie had 17 touches and Garcia 14 to go with five marks and five inside 50s.

ROUND 3
WEST PERTH v SUBIACO – HBF ARENA, SATURDAY 2.40PM
Broadcast – 7mate

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