ROUND 5 PREVIEW V SOUTH FREMANTLE

WEST Perth returns to Arena Joondalup this Saturday to host the winless South Fremantle looking for a third straight win and to continue its brilliant form against East Perth last week.

Following a slightly slow start to the season with two straight losses albeit narrow ones at the hands of East Fremantle and Claremont, the Falcons have now won two games on the trot starting against Perth and then the first ever 100-point win a Perth derby against East Perth last Saturday.

That means that West Perth is coming into this Saturday's standalone WAFL fixture back at Arena Joondalup against the winless South Fremantle full of confidence.

South Fremantle has had its chances to win so far this year, but has lost to Subiaco, Perth, East Perth and Swan Districts.

The Falcons can't take anything for granted against the Bulldogs, though, especially considering they have won 14 of 22 matches at Arena Joondalup including a 39-point win at the venue against West Perth last year.

It is an incredibly hard West Perth team to break into coming off the 100-point win over East Perth, but that is exactly what Andrew Krakouer, Shaun Marusic and Jack Thrum are attempting to do after playing well in the reserves team that also beat the Royals by 100-plus points.

Following virtually no pre-season, Krakouer made a slow start to his time at West Perth but his last two games in the reserves have been terrific and he now looks on track to make his Falcons debut and to play his first WAFL game since the 2010 grand final for Swan Districts.

Krakouer had 26 possessions, seven tackles and a goal last week in the reserves and could add yet another quality piece to the West Perth line-up coming off winning last year's premiership.

Suddenly a forward-line of Marcus Adams, Anthony Tsalikis, Matt Fowler, Kody Manning, Marc Crisp and the addition of Krakouer is a scary thing for opposition teams.

South Fremantle is desperate to find a winning formula after starting the season with four straight losses.

They do add some size and quality back to the line-up from the team that lost to Swan Districts last week with Alistair Gillespie and Paul Mugambwa both set to return.

Each is capable of helping to provide another option in the forward-line to Ben Saunders and Josh Pullman, and also helping out Brock Higgins in the ruck in the continued absence of James Sellar with a knee injury.

Important and hard-nosed defender Adam McIntosh will also return after missing the game against Swans with Jarrod Parry a chance to play his first league game since Round 23, 2010 after some consistently strong form in the midfield for the reserves since returning from his latest knee injury.

James Laurino is the only out of the South Fremantle team at this stage who even though he did some nice things against Swans, having only seven possessions meant he simply didn’t do enough.

RESERVES TEAM

B Antonio, J Batterham, C Branch, S Healy, M Johnson, B King, J Kirwen, S Martin, L Meadows, S Money, B O'Regan, D Sorgiovanni, M Spencer, T Sutherland, J Thrum, B Wilhelm

COLTS TEAM

N Beutel, R Dolman, M Douglas, K Egan, A Elton, K Fullgrabe, J Gray, C Hinchcliffe, A Innes, E Larmett, C Lynch, T Manners, W Michell, T Moulton, B Mountford, D Munns, S Nelson, J Nolan, M Peirce, S Rotham, Z Saunders, J Sheehan-Nel, A Smith, D Toohey, J Turner, M Walley

BY CHRIS PIKE