IN THEIR WORDS – BLAKE WILHELM WA DAY COLUMN

THE first eight rounds of the season have flown by and we find ourselves sitting with a 4-3 record after some close losses to top two teams South and Subi which could have gone either way. Plenty has happened both on and off the field so far in 2018 and it's great to see a few old heads coming back down to the club.

One of those old heads is none other than Corey 'Don't forget your RPE' Green. Greeny comes back to head up our strength and conditioning program this year, and boy does he love it. You should have seen the pure joy on his face from watching us suffer through pre-season. When I say suffer, I'm not just referring to the running, but the Spotify playlist made up of non-stop, back to back, encore versions of Post Malone – it wasn't fun.

There may be some method to the madness, though, as the boys are fitter than ever and it's showing on the field. One thing I can't get on board with is his diet though. He has two jars of peanut butter by the spoonful a day. That's definitely not something I can get around.

Another old head that we welcome back is premiership captain and club great Jason 'Let me play' Salecic. Leading our forwards as their line coach for the year has seemed to do wonders for our accuracy and I'm glad to see that having his own personalised footy hasn’t got to him. Athough in saying that, you do hear him from time to time at training shout "You will never miss a target with that footy." So there is definitely still a bit of head wobble about the great man.

Now it's time for a little look back at the week before the bye where we played one of our best games of the year against East Fremantle. When I say we, I mean ANDREW STRIJK. If anyone was there to witness the game, it was absolutely unreal the clinic he put on, and even more unreal that he predicted it. Before the game started, he let the boys know that "it was time to put the kettle on" and boy did he ever. He essentially put 21 other blokes on his back and I would happily jump on his back again if he can produce another eight-goal haul against East Perth. He juts gets better with age, even though he would tell you he is only 21.

We now look ahead to probably the biggest day of the year for most of our supporters, and us as players. Much like our supporters, the boys are really up and about this week looking to get a bit of redemption on what should be a massive WA Day Derby. The type of footy we are playing at the moment is really exciting so I urge everyone to come down and show some support on Monday.

The boys are excited to be back at home again and will be looking for Mitch Peirce to continue to 'fly the flag' as he loves to do.

See you on Monday!