ROUND 2 PREVIEW v SUBIACO

WEST Perth looks to continue its terrific start to the 2013 WAFL season taking on Subiaco at Leederville's Medibank Stadium on Friday night.

The Falcons could not have possibly made a better start to the 2013 campaign than last Saturday's 75-point thumping of East Perth at Arena Joondalup.

But that will count for little unless West Perth backs it up with another strong performance this Friday against a Subiaco team that had a Round 1 bye, and is ready to fire for the first time under new coach Jarrad Schofield.

Perhaps the most impressive aspect of the win over East Perth was the fact that there were terrific contributions from youngsters, experienced players and those in between alike.

Debutant Matthew Johnson kicked six goals while Dan Hunt and Michael Pettigrew were terrific in defence with Ray Bartholomew, Chris Keunen, Jay van Berlo, Shane Nelson, Steven Browne, Jordan Jones, Aaron Black and Andrew Strijk all outstanding also.

The West Perth team to face Subiaco on Friday night is even strengthened further with the return of last year's fairest and best winner, and West Coast rookie, Mark Hutchings.

Two players had to make room with the squad going down from 23 to 22 from last week, and to move aside for Hutchings. The two unlucky players are Marc Crisp and Trent Manzone.

West Perth coach Bill Monaghan is confident that the fact his team just played in hot conditions on Saturday to pull up for a Friday night clash with a Subiaco side that had the bye last weekend won't have any impact once the teams run out there for the Round 2 meeting.

Added into the fact that West Perth has the bye in Round 3 following the game, Monaghan is urging his players to throw everything at Subiaco.

"This week is a difficult situation. We've had a game under our belt which at this time of the year is always great to be put under that sort of pressure, but Subiaco had a bye so they are going to be fresher than us," Monaghan said.

"A six-day break on the second game of the year isn’t a big issue, but as the season gets a bit longer and you nurse a few injuries then it can have a significant impact on your preparation, but we also have the knowledge that we have a break after this so the players know that they don’t need to keep anything in the tank."

With a new coach and as many as six players lining up for Subiaco for the first time, Monaghan knows that there is a fair degree of the unknown when it comes to the Lions coming into the clash on Friday night, but what he does know is that they will be primed and ready for the Falcons.

"I expect Subiaco to be up and going after all reports are that they've done a fantastic pre-season in terms of how hard they've worked, and they clearly are playing a distinctive style under their new coach which is fairly different to what they played last year," Monaghan said.

"We expect it to be hot from the start and we expect our players to be ready from that. With a run under our belts, we should be able to match that and hopefully as the game goes along we find ourselves on top."

BY CHRIS PIKE