SOUTH Fremantle is the only team that West Perth had not been able to defeat during the home and away season and this trend continued at Fremantle Community Bank Oval on Saturday. On both previous occasions it was the tall South Fremantle key forwards who did all of the damage and this was the case once again. Despite the best efforts of the Falcons defence Ben Saunders and Mason Shaw kicked eight goals between them and Blaine Johnson added three at ground level.

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WEST Perth is back for another WAFL finals campaign in 2016 and it gets underway on Saturday against South Fremantle in a qualifying final at Fremantle Community Bank Oval.

The WAFL finals begin at Fremantle Community Bank Oval on Saturday with the second placed South Fremantle hosting the third placed West Perth with Subiaco awaiting the winner.

The winner of Saturday's qualifying final will advance to next Sunday's second semi-final against Subiaco at Medibank Stadium with a grand final berth at stake.

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WEST Perth welcomes back Shane Nelson, Dean Munns, Tyler Keitel and Steve Potente for Saturday's WAFL qualifying final against South Fremantle and coach Bill Monaghan hopes the Falcons finals experience can be used as a positive.

The Falcons finished the home and away season winning 12 of their last 15 games following a 1-4 start to end up in third position to book a qualifying final berth against the Bulldogs this Saturday at Fremantle Community Bank Oval.

It looms as a fascinating contest with West Perth coming off winning the 2013 premiership and playing in the 2015 grand final while South Fremantle hasn’t made a finals appearance since 2011.

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WEST Perth premiership coach Bill Monaghan discusses the last round victory over Swan Districts, who he expects to return for Saturday's qualifying final against South Fremantle at Fremantle Community Bank Oval and what he makes of the Bulldogs as opponents.

QUESTION: In some ways it was a game you just wanted to get through unscathed but you wouldn’t have wanted to go into the finals with a loss, so it was good to finish off well?
ANSWER: I thought for the first five or 10 minutes we were very good, we just couldn’t hit the scoreboard with three or four points and a couple on the full. I think three of those were from the top of the goal square that we messed up as well. Then Swans went down and kicked a couple of cheap goals and they were good this week. They had a crack, they ran hard forward and they caught us on the rebound so that's really disappointing for us, but in the end had our goal kicking accuracy been a bit better we would have won quite comfortably. Having 31 scoring shots on not a great day was OK but the fact that we gave up 21 is probably a bit disappointing. But nine of those were in the first quarter so it eventually turned but it took longer than we would have liked. But we were experimenting with a few things and whilst we weren’t trying to be disrespectful to Swans, once third spot was locked away we had to try a few things that may be of use to us come finals time. We did a couple of different things and some of them worked well, and some weren’t great. The best of them was probably Hamilton doing a reasonably good job back and Morrow doing reasonably well forward. I would think that at least now we are relatively confident those two can switch spots.

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WEST Perth conceded the opening five goals of the game but four goals in succession during the last quarter was enough to set up a 20-point victory over the bottom placed Swan Districts at HBF Arena.

West Perth was always going to finish in third position no matter the result and Swan Districts was always going to be well clear on the bottom of the ladder, but it was the black-and-whites who started on fire.

Swans led by as much as 29 points late in the first quarter but West Perth gradually worked its way back in front and four goals in 13 minutes during the final quarter ended up setting up the 13.18 (96) to 11.10 (76) victory.

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SWAN Districts had only won two games going into the last fixture of the year but it didn’t stop them from giving West Perth a real run for their money. It might have been the last game for Swan Districts captain Tallan Ames who is weighing up his future for 2017, but a calf injury ended his day early.

At the end of the day it was the class of the Falcons that got them over the line but it wasn’t until midway through the last quarter that West Perth had the game under control. Coach Bill Monaghan used the game to experiment with a few positional changes leading into the finals and it will be interesting to see what impact this will have in the weeks ahead.

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THE West Perth Football Club will enter teams in the WA Women's Football League in 2017 after the board unanimously voted this week to enter into an arrangement with the Joondalup Women’s Football Club.

The move will see Western Australia’s oldest surviving football club bring the successful Joondalup women’s club into the fold, integrating all administrative and on-field functions with the operations of the West Perth Football Club at HBF Arena.

The announcement has been two years in the making and will give the women’s club the support it needs to ensure it continues to develop the game for women in the northern corridor.

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IT is Members' Appreciation Day at HBF Arena on Saturday as West Perth hosts Swan Districts in the final round of the WAFL season before the Falcons embark on another finals campaign.

West Perth and Swan Districts might have little on the line on Saturday at HBF Arena but games between the two clubs always throw up something unexpected and don't be surprised if that happens.

With West Perth guaranteed of finishing third no matter the result and Swan Districts sitting five games and percentage clear on the bottom of the ladder, there might be little at stake but that doesn’t mean both teams won't want to put in good performances.

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WEST Perth had to drag their bodies over the line last year to make the WAFL grand final having had the last bye in Round 15, but this time the Falcons have had a bye in the second last round and coach Bill Monaghan can't complain about the preparation for another finals campaign.

West Perth ended up playing 12 straight matches culminating in the grand final last year since the last bye in Round 15 and there were certainly some bodies that needed to be managed, but this year it's a different story with the Falcons now coming off the Round 22 bye.

The break for the Falcons leads into this Saturday's clash at HBF Arena against the wooden spooners Swan Districts in what is Members' Appreciation Day for the Falcons.

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WEST Perth premiership coach Bill Monaghan discusses Saturday's thrilling one-point win over Claremont at HBF Arena ahead of the bye this weekend and a final round clash with Swan Districts also back at the Joondalup venue.

QUESTION: It was important to bounce back and you did that, but Claremont is a team that just doesn’t lie down?
ANSWER: I can't control what Claremont do. They've lost a lot of close games and is that bad luck for them or good luck for the opposition, I don’t know. We were in front pretty much the whole day and we had a few blokes who were struggling and I'm sure they did too. We made five changes to what was probably our best 22 as well so we were vulnerable late. Steve Potente hasn’t played for a month, Nick Rodda hasn’t played for a month and I just thought in the end we looked a little out on our feet and they kept coming. Obviously it's good to get on the right side of the win and sometimes we can look at one side being unlucky, but if you're in front and you hold on you've done enough right over the day to win. Considering we got belted at clearances, we did a reasonable job I think to win the game. Centre bounces early were terrible for us and we were minus 12 in clearances over the ground so we played a lot of the game in their half but we dug deep and got the win. Whether it's one-point or 100 points, it's a win and takes us one step closer now to holding down third spot.

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