KEY POSITION PLAYER INJURIES CREATES OPPORTUNITIES

WEST Perth's continued injury troubles with key position players has opened up opportunities for others and that has seen Sam Rotham and Drew Rohde already impress, and Tyler Keitel likely to receive his opportunity to make his league debut any time now.

West Perth lost back up ruckman Seva Martin to a knee reconstruction late last year and then the loss of talls to injuries has continued with Jordan Jones, Max Alexander and Shayne Zanetti still out indefinitely but Marcus Adams a chance to return soon if he gets some good news this week.

With those players absent, there has been increased opportunities for others in the West Perth team and that has seen usual half-forward Drew Rohde have to play above his height at times as a key defender this season, and to hold his own well.

And then Sam Rotham has had to come in to play as a key defender on some of the league's best tall forwards despite having just played 10 colts matches last year and three reserves games to start 2015 to get him ready for it.

However, coach Bill Monaghan couldn’t be happier with how the pair have handled being thrown into the deep end.

"It does provide a fantastic opportunity and I think Sam Rotham has been wonderful," Monaghan said.

"He does have some work to do on his strength and he's only just turned 19 with one senior pre-season under his belt, but his athleticism is outstanding and he has really settled in well to our senior side.

"Drew Rohde is getting opportunities and we've still got another two or three kids in our reserves who have been good for most of the season who will get a run at some stage."

While the injured players might still be a way off returning for the Falcons, there could be some new blood in the league side any time now with Tyler Keitel having played well the last two weeks in the reserves after eventually being cleared from East Perth to join the Falcons.

Having not been able to train for more than two months during the clearance wrangle, Keitel came in off limited preparation to play well 21 possessions, six marks and three tackles in his first reserves match with West Perth against Swan Districts.

Then five days later he had 18 touches and three marks against Claremont on Saturday, and now could even be a chance to make his league debut against East Perth this Saturday at HBF Arena.

"Given where we are with our talls, he is probably going to come in sooner rather than later," he said.

"A lot of it is going to be how he pulls up because he was fairly sore after his first game, and then had to back up on a short break after not being able to do much for 10 or 11 weeks.

"We'll have a good discussion around that at match committee this week. I think he is showing that he's going to be able to play league footy fairly soon."

As for the injured brigade, there has been further bad news with Jordan Jones who began training on return from the hamstring he tore in Round 1 but then discovered he had a badly broken finger the whole time, and that will mean he might not return until the last month of the season.

"Jordan Jones actually has undergone surgery on his finger. It was discovered that he actually had a broken finger for the five or six weeks he's been out," he said.

"We just thought it had a bit of swelling, but then he trained the other night and it wasn’t right so he went to have an X-ray and it's a pretty significant break. If it's just the break, then he's getting a wire put in it and a break with no ligament damage will keep him out for six or seven weeks.

"But a break with ligament damage might mean he's out up to 12 weeks, but he's not coming back in the short term."

The news could be better with Marcus Adams who could be an outside chance of taking on East Perth on Saturday while Alexander and Zanetti are unknowns with their returns at this stage.

"Marcus will get his splint off this week and get another X-ray and we will find out whether or not he's making progress," Monaghan said.

"He is one of our fittest players and he's been able to do plenty of work aside from handling the ball, so if he gets the all clear from the doctor he will play immediately.

"Shayne Zanetti has had some reoccurring issues with his back so he's not playing at the moment and obviously Max is still out for a while."