ROUND 13 PREVIEW V EAST FREMANTLE

SECOND spot on the ladder could potentially go on the line on Sunday when East Fremantle does battle with West Perth at East Fremantle Oval for the second time in six weeks.

West Perth remains in second position on the WAFL ladder with a 6-4 record but is only just clinging to that spot following defeats the last fortnight to East Perth and Claremont following a strong 36-point win over Perth in Round 10 that saw the Falcons move clear in second spot.

The Falcons now sit just a game clear of the chasing Perth, East Fremantle, Subiaco and East Perth so spots on the ladder from second right down to eighth are remarkably even making every game against one another incredibly important.

That is certainly the case with Sunday's clash at Shark Park. East Fremantle bounced back well last Saturday beating Peel by 35 points at home following a horror Foundation Derby performance against South Fremantle.

That win improved last year's grand finalists to a 5-5 record to have the chance to move up into second spot with a win over West Perth on Sunday, or to potentially drop as low as sixth with a loss.

The last time the two teams met at East Fremantle Oval as well in Round 8 was an incredible battle of sharp kicking on goal with West Perth booting 24.8 to beat the Sharks who kicked 21.3 in what was East Fremantle's most accurate goal kicking performance in the club's history.

East Fremantle is swapping some youth for youth with its side to take on the Falcons on Sunday from the one that beat Peel Thunder last Saturday.

Young small forward Godfrey Curley and impressive defender Matthew Jupp go out of the team with running midfielder/half-forward James Depane a chance to return along with a couple of potential debutants to come in.

Jordan Dorotich, the son of former Carlton and South Fremantle great Jon, could play his first game with East Fremantle while Sam Read could also make his official WAFL debut after playing in the Sharks' Foxtel Cup win over Norwood in Adelaide earlier this season

West Perth has some massive outs with wingman Ray Bartholomew out with a calf strain he suffered early in last week's eventual loss to Claremont at Arena Joondalup.

Veteran forward Anthony Tsalikis has been in some of the best form of his career so far this season as a hard leading half-forward, but he is also out of the side to take on the Sharks this Sunday due to work commitments.

One of last week's inclusions James Batterham is also out of the team.

Rohan Kerr (thigh) and Kody Manning (knee) are both pressing to make their return from injury but will still face fitness tests leading into the clash on Sunday to determine their availability.

Ruckman Chris Keunen is an important inclusion after being a late withdrawal last week against Claremont when he went down with a migraine during the warm-up meaning Frank Stockley had to be pulled out of the reserves to help carry the ruck alongside debutant Shaun Marusic.

Matt Fowler could be the most likely inclusion to replace Tsalikis after kicking bags of five goals three straight weeks in the reserves. Brayden Antonio has been in impressive reserves form this season for West Perth and the 18-year-old could make his first league appearance of the season.

Kris Shannon is also pushing for inclusion as is small defender Laine Rasmussen after racking up 30 possessions and laying six tackles in the Falcons reserves last Saturday against Claremont.

West Perth coach Bill Monaghan certainly doesn’t want it necessarily to be another high-scoring affair against the Sharks on Sunday, but will be happy to take a win no matter how it comes about.

"I don’t want it to be another shoot out but if you gave me a 24-goal to 21-goal victory now I would take that. Sometimes the game doesn’t pan out the way you want it to, but the hard thing about that last game against East Fremantle was that it was a fantastic game of footy, but both sides kicked exceptionally well on goal. It could have easily been an 18-goal to 14 result and then the scores aren’t that high, but we kicked 24.8 and they kicked 21.3," Monaghan said.

"What we need to work out is if we contributed to their 21.3 because of the ease we let them score at because 24 scoring shots isn’t a huge amount to give up, and it's probably only a couple more than we would like. If they kicked 14.10 from those 24 shots then that's probably about average and no one would be calling it a shoot out. That game was only a shoot out because of how both teams shot on goal.

"We will try to close it down a little, though, and I'm sure East Fremantle will do the same. They had a couple of weeks where they actually got scored on quite heavily and then they seemed to be able to close down the game a bit more last week. I expect it to be more of a dour struggle than it was that day."

BY CHRIS PIKE