NAIDOC ROUND PREVIEW V PEEL THUNDER

WEST Perth makes the trip to Mandurah's Bendigo Bank Stadium to take on the fifth placed Peel Thunder on Saturday as part of the WAFL NAIDOC Round with the Falcons needing to win remain a top two chance.

Peel Thunder and West Perth met in the finals last year and are on track to be back in September action in 2016 again making Saturday's match a crucial one for both clubs at Bendigo Bank Stadium.

Peel made the finals for the first time in its history last year and while that ended up with losses to West Perth and East Perth, the Thunder have again put themselves in a position to be back there this year despite losing its last two matches against South Fremantle and Swan Districts before the bye.

West Perth beat Peel in last year's qualifying final on its way to a grand final loss to Subiaco and after a slow start to 2016 winning one of the opening five games, the Falcons have now played some tremendous football winning eight of their last nine matches.

And last week's 70-point win over East Fremantle at HBF Arena was West Perth's most dominant win of the season to see the Falcons improve to a 9-5 record to now be two games clear in third position, and also just one game out of second.

Peel, meanwhile, has slipped to fifth spot and a 7-6 record with its two losses prior to last week's bye. That sees the Thunder slip two games behind the third placed West Perth and be just one game clear of the sixth placed East Perth.

With West Perth needing to win to keep its top two hopes alive and Peel in a must-win situation to stay in the top five, there is plenty of stake between two teams who have every reason to expect to end 2016 by playing finals.

Peel and West Perth first met this season back in Round 8 at HBF Arena it was the Falcons who won by 17 points in a game played in difficult conditions, and that ended up being terribly low scoring.

West Perth coach Bill Monaghan has no doubt that nobody at the Falcons will be taking Peel lightly, that all changed with a loss in Mandurah back in 2008. But he knows the Thunder will be a tough opponent and one that has been tough to prepare for this week.

"I'm really confident that there was a watershed moment travelling down to Peel Thunder in my first or second year that we lovingly recall as the Mother's Day Massacre. I would think that if you look back through the history since then that it was a clear mental shift from our players after that," Monaghan said.

"When I got here travelling to Mandurah was seen as a pain in the backside and something they didn’t want to go through because of how far away it is. It is a long road trip but those days are long gone where we don’t prepare well. We have played some ripper games down there against talented Peel Thunder sides.

"It will be a little difficult planning this week because they or Fremantle didn’t play last week, and it's a big unknown how many Fremantle players filter back and Walsh and Bootsma suffered some sort of injury last game they played. We will need to be sharp mentally but I think we will be right if we roll up with the attitude."

West Perth delivered its most emphatic victory of the season last Saturday beating East Fremantle by 70 points at HBF Arena to consolidate third spot, and the Falcons welcome back some key players against Peel for the trip to Mandurah this Saturday.

Andrew Strijk missed last week's win over East Fremantle having kicked seven goals the previous two weeks and he will return as will hard man Kody Manning for his first game since Round 12 against East Perth prior to the state game.

Life member and premiership player Luke Tedesco is also in the mix to return after a week back in the reserves after reaching his 150-game milestone a fortnight ago against South Fremantle.

James Batterham, Corey Chalmers and Mitch Peirce were all impressive in the reserves last week as well to put themselves in contention for a call up.

Batterham had 20 possessions and a goal last week against South Fremantle with Chalmers finishing with 31 disposals and Peirce 17 along with five tackles.

There are some big outs for West Perth, though, with state defender Luke Meadows, hard working midfielder Aidan Lynch and last week's debutant Tyson Moulton out of the line-up.

Peel's team two weeks ago against Swan Districts featured just two AFL-listed players in Shane Yarran and Josh Deluca who are yet to plan a game with the Dockers after Clancee Pearce injured an ankle early in the game.

With Fremantle's injury list improving since then that gives Peel some good news with some Dockers players again available to play against the Falcons on Saturday.

Defenders Sean Hurley, Ethan Hughes and Sean Hurley will all return to immediately make the Thunder defence look more solid and it will need to be after Michael Lourey kicked five goals, Max Duffy and Mark Hamilton for West Perth last week.

Peel's big man stocks immediately get considerably boosted as well with the returns of Zac Clarke and Jack Hannath, with the duo capable of sharing the ruck duties while also playing as a key forward target.

The Thunder's midfield will also be boosted by the return of Matt De Boer while Tendai Mzungu is also in the mix to play depending or not if he's required by Fremantle against Melbourne on Saturday night at TIO Stadium.

Brett Milward kicked four goals in the reserves two weeks ago for Peel to put himself in the mix for selection against West Perth as well with Nathan Fahey also coming off a strong performance with 19 disposals and five marks.

As well as Clancee Pearce, Jake Dowding, Richard Wight and Mitch Gill are out of the Thunder team that lost to Swan Districts by 39 points a fortnight ago prior to the bye.

ROUND 16
PEEL THUNDER (7-6, 5th) v WEST PERTH (9-5, 3rd) – BENDIGO BANK STADIUM, SATURDAY 2.15PM
Broadcast – 91.3 SportFM

LEAGUE TEAMS, LIVE STATS 
RESERVES TEAMS, LIVE STATS 
COLTS TEAMS, LIVE STATS