RESERVES PRELIMINARY FINAL PREVIEW V CLAREMONT

WEST Perth's reserves set their sights on qualifying for a second straight grand final appearance when taking on Claremont in Sunday's preliminary final at Leederville's Medibank Stadium.

West Perth and Claremont do battle at the Leederville venue from 11.25am on Sunday for the right to advance to the grand final to take on Subiaco next Sunday.

West Perth played Claremont three times during the home and away season with the Falcons only managing to win one of those.

Claremont won the opening clash by 46 points at Joondalup's HBF Arena in Round 2 before West Perth squared the ledger for 2014 with a 48-point thumping in Round 11 at the Claremont Showground.

The final meeting was then in Round 22 also at the Showground and on that occasion it was Claremont who won by 24 points.

West Perth earned the finals double chance on the back of a 13-7 win-loss record during the 2014 home and away season after reaching last year's grand final before losing in the decider to South Fremantle.

The Falcons put together a strong season again in 2014 to give them another chance at a premiership, but Subiaco had dominated the reserves right throughout the year and that continued in last week's second semi-final.

Subiaco ended up beating West Perth by 56 points to move straight into the grand final and to leave the Falcons needing to beat the Tigers to set up a return clash with the Lions on Sunday September 21 at Patersons Stadium.

West Perth's reserves was well served by 27 possessions from Trent Manzone, 20 from Jack Thrum, 19 from Ben McNamara and 17 from Kris Shannon in the second semi-final, but the Falcons will need a lift right across the board.

And there is enough talent certainly in the West Perth line-up to be able to bounce back.

Up forward Matt Fowler and Shayne Zanetti can provide a potent one-two scoring threat, but both were well held last week against Subiaco with both going goalless.

However, the week before Zanetti booted seven goals in his first game with West Perth for two years and Fowler is a proven commodity as a hard-leading full-forward who was part of the Falcons' league premiership of 2013.

Shaun Marusic is another league premiership in West Perth's line-up and the key position player has the ability to play at either end of the ground, and to help out Seva Martin in the ruck.

Brayden Antonio, Luke Meadows, Shannon, Max Alexander, Ben King, Mitch van Berlo and Drew Rohde all finished the season in West Perth's league line-up and will again play for the reserves in Sunday's preliminary final.

Then there are McNamara, Mitch McPhee, Aidan Lynch, Ben O'Regan, Jordan Mills and Corey Chalmers who have been playing strong reserves football for at least two years now trying to earn a spot as regular league players.

Despite West Perth's strong line-up, Claremont enters the preliminary final in strong form and coming off a 67-point first semi-final win over East Fremantle last Sunday at East Fremantle Oval.

That Claremont team included Keifer Yu, Sam Fong, Ben Daniher, Jackson Starcevich, Steven Edwards, Darcy Cameron, Matthew Goyder, Henry Roberts and Jack Richardson who have all shown that they are capable of playing well at league level with the Tigers.

RESERVES PRELIMINARY FINAL
MEDIBANK STADIUM, SUNDAY 11.25am

WEST PERTH
M Alexander, B Antonio, J Batterham, C Branch, C Chalmers, J Embley, M Fowler, M Geraghty, S Healy, B King, J Kirwen, A Lynch, T Manzone, S Martin, S Marusic, B McNamara, M McPhee, L Meadows, J Mills, S Money, J Morrow, B O'Regan, D Rohde, K Shannon, J Thrum, M Van Berlo, B Walton, B Wilhelm, T Young, S Zanetti

CLAREMONT
J Beeck, M Bentley, D Blackwell, D Cameron, B Daniher, L Davey, J Ebert, S Edwards, L Falconer, S Fong, K Gilbert, M Goyder, B Higgs, T House, K Knott, S Lamont, J Law, S McAdam, J McPhee, J Richardson, H Roberts, L Salomone, J Starcevich, N Steens, B Taylor, J Tilley, T Willett, K Yu