ROUND 16 PREVIEW V SUBIACO

West Perth needs to beat Subiaco to keep its slim finals hopes alive in 2014 as the Falcons celebrate an International Football Festival at HBF Arena in Joondalup.

It is set to be a massive day at HBF Arena on Saturday and as a result the colts game will be played on Friday night with bounce down at 6pm while the reserves match then begins at 10.40am on Saturday and the league match in the regular 2.05pm time slot.

The International Football Festival matches have been a tremendous success the past two years for the Falcons as well with 6044 watching on in 2012 when West Perth also played Subiaco while last year, 6195 people attended as East Fremantle came to HBF Arena for the occasion.

West Perth will play in a unique 'international' themed jumper designed by a local Year 5 student from Quinns Rocks Primary School.

For the first time in 2014, the West Perth Football Club is also excited to host The City of Joondalup’s Citizenship Ceremony as new Australians make a public commitment to Australia accepting the responsibilities and privileges of citizenship. This will be held in a pre-match ceremony. 
 
West Perth has now fallen three games outside of the four following last week's loss to Swan Districts and another loss to the third-placed Subiaco will mean that the Falcons finals chances are just about officially over.

West Perth has been unable to build any momentum all season along coming off last year's premiership.

The Falcons lost their first two matches of 2014 to East Fremantle and Claremont before bouncing back with wins over Perth and East Perth.

West Perth then lost two straight games again this time to Swan Districts and South Fremantle before once more rebounding with successive wins over Peel Thunder and Subiaco.

Since then, West Perth lost to East Perth, beat Claremont, lost to East Fremantle, beat South Fremantle and then last week lost to Swan Districts at home.

All of that means that the Falcons virtually have to win all their remaining seven matches this season against Subiaco, East Perth, East Fremantle, Swan Districts, Claremont, Perth and Peel Thunder in order to make the finals in 2014 and to defend their premiership.

Subiaco won its first five games of 2014, then lost three of four matches between Rounds 7-10 and now have regained its best form with three wins from its last four matches prior to the bye last weekend.

Jack Thrum goes out of the West Perth side after copping a heavy knock in the opening minutes last week against Swan Districts that saw him sidelined for the rest of the afternoon.

West Perth is then weighing up several options of players to come into the team with forward Max Alexander a chance to come in and make his official WAFL debut having already played in two Foxtel Cup matches this year.

Brayden Antonio was best afield last week in the reserves with 29 possessions and two goals to put himself back in the mix to play his 14th league match since making his debut in X012.

Aidan Lynch has also emerged this year into a midfielder of note for the future and he's a chance to come into side this week to make his first appearance in the league side just weeks after being best afield in the Foxtel Cup semi-final win over the Western Storm at Patersons Stadium.

Lively half-forward Mitch McPhee is in the mix for West Perth as well having also done well with three goals in that Foxtel Cup win over the Storm.

Subiaco had the bye last weekend following its win over Peel Thunder, but that hasn’t given full-forward Matt Boland enough time to recover from a hamstring injury.

He goes out of the team leading the Bernie Naylor Medal race as the league's leading goalkicker with 38 majors so far this season.

James Garcia and Ryan Wade also go out of the Subiaco side that beat Peel a fortnight ago.

Lachlan Delahunty is back for Subiaco to help make up for the absence of Boland with the versatile big man returning from injury that has sidelined him since the Round 11 victory over Swan Districts at Steel Blue Oval.

Dylan Clarke, Chris Deluca, Will Fetherstonhaugh, Craig Hoskins and Simon Moore are all in the mix to play for Subiaco as well.

RESERVES TEAM
C Branch, C Chalmers, J Embley, M Geraghty, P Harvey, B King, J Kirwen, T Manzone, B McNamara, L Meadows, J Mills, S Money, J Morrow, B O'Regan, D Rohde, K Shannon, D Sorgiovanni, T Sutherland, J Thrum, M Van Berlo, B Walton, B Wilhelm, T Young

COLTS TEAM
M Antonio, M Ashfield, A Baker, L Beissel, N Beutel, J Booth, K Coleman, M Douglas, K Egan, K Fullgrabe, J Gray, C Hinchcliffe, T Manners, W Michell, T Moulton, B Mountford, D Munns, S Nelson, J Nolan, M Peirce, D Robertson, S Rotham, J Sheehan-Nel, A Smith, L Tedesco, M Walley,