MUNNS, NELSON PIVOTAL PARTS OF WEST PERTH WINNING RUN

WEST Perth has won seven straight matches in the WAFL and it's no coincidence that has gone hand in hand with Shane Nelson dominating winning the ball in the midfield and Dean Munns shutting down the opposition's best player.

The Falcons had a slow start to the season winning just one of the first five matches leading into a do-or-die clash with Swan Districts back in Round 6.

Nelson came in for his first game of the year that day after a finger injury while Munns also received the call up to make his debut, and neither has looked back since and nor has West Perth as a team.

As well as that win over Swans, West Perth has gone on to defeat Claremont, Peel Thunder, Subiaco, Perth, East Perth and then last week Claremont again by three points at the Claremont Showground.

That leaves West Perth in third position on the ladder at 8-4 heading into this Saturday's clash with the second placed South Fremantle.

Nelson's impact in those seven wins is unmistakable with the premiership player and dual Breckler Medallist racking up 34 possessions a game. His lowest tallies have been 29 disposals against Swan Districts and Peel while he had a high of 42 back on WA Day against East Perth.

Munns might have averaged just 9.7 disposals in his seven matches but that doesn’t at all explain the extent of his impact.

He has been given the task of stopping the opposition's best ball winner on each occasion and that has seen him keep Claremont's Jye Bolton to 27 touches in two games along with East Perth's Kane Lucas to five, Peel's Rory O'Brien to 21, Subiaco's Leigh Kitchin to 11 and Swan Districts' Aaron Elari to 10.

West Perth coach Bill Monaghan knows that you can't have a team full of big inside ball winners or of taggers, but when you have a combination in a midfield like Nelson and Munns the impact can be stark.

Munns would have been a natural choice to tag Ashton Hams this week against South Fremantle, but with him out injured it might open the door for a different target and potentially young state midfielder Tim Kelly who has never been tagged previously.

"We need the combination of both. We can't have 18 Dean Munns' and we probably can't have 18 Shane Nelson's. Every player brings a different skill set to the game," Monaghan said.

"It's an interesting one this week. We need to work out whether we want to tag someone or not and we talk about that target a lot. We were expecting last week that Shanahan who has been tagging for Claremont would go to Nelson but he ended up going to Kerr early so everyone has a different view.

"Hams would have been the target for Dean and now Kelly could be the target, but who knows we might play Dean as a standalone midfielder or he even spent 10 or 15 minutes at full-back on Bolton so he might play in a back pocket. Dean has other tricks than just tagging but it's working for us and he's the right person at this stage."

Munns did another tremendous job last Saturday against Claremont holding Simpson Medallist Bolton to just 17 possessions after he had 46 and two gals the week before in the state game win over Tasmania.

Monaghan is delighted with the job he is doing and is looking forward to seeing how he continues to develop and grow.

"I was really pleased on Saturday that Dean did a great job again but he also found it 12 times and that's going to be our challenge with Dean," he said.

"He's going to be able to need to get that balance right and at the moment it's been heavily weighted to just stopping, but a couple of times he has shown great awareness to leave his opponent and win some vital ball for us.

"His handballing was exceptional on the weekend and his kicking not so, but we were really pleased especially for a kid who isn’t getting a lot of protection off the ball. He's getting thumped every week and run into from a long way away, scragged, kneed, thrown to the ground and tackled high.

"I think a lot needs to be said about Dean. He has played seven games of league footy, tagged in every one of them and given away nine free-kicks. I think that shows he is a fair ball player and one of the three he gave away on the weekend I reckon it was very generous giving it to Jye Bolton when it was the secondary tackler who gave it away."

Nelson has always been a tremendous performer over his 88-game WAFL career, but Monaghan acknowledges he might have gone to another level again in 2016.

"We need Shane Nelson in there winning the football and we've shown by stopping the opposition's ball winner that it's a viable thing to help you win games of footy," Monaghan said.

"Shane's exceptional around the footy and he can win enough of the footy with his clearances. He laid 10 tackles on the weekend as well so he showed in close he can do it both offensively and defensively.