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WAFL Round 19 Preview

Friday, July 26, 2013 - 7:49 PM

WAFL Round 19 consists of the final two derbies of 2013 with plenty riding on the results while in the other two games Swan Districts and Claremont are looking to return to the winner's list against out of contention sides.

West Perth takes on East Perth at Arena Joondalup, South Fremantle hosts East Fremantle at Fremantle Oval, Swan Districts battles Peel Thunder at Bassendean's Steel Blue Oval and Subiaco faces Claremont at Leederville's Medibank Stadium.

All four matches are on Saturday afternoon with a bounce down time of 2.05pm.

SUBIACO (5-10, 7th) v CLAREMONT (13-2, 1st) – MEDIBANK STADIUM, SATURDAY 2.05PM


Selected teams

Subiaco might have upset Claremont earlier in the season to hand the Tigers their first loss of 2013 but it would be a brave human to suggest that the now struggling Lions can repeat that against a Claremont outfit looking to return to the winner's list.

Subiaco was impressive back in Round 11 beating Claremont by 10 points at Claremont Oval and that was in the middle of a three-game winning run for the Lions.

Things were looking good for Jarrod Schofield's team at that point, but Subiaco has failed to win a game since then with losses to Swan Districts, West Perth, East Fremantle, Perth and the Sharks again to now slip to a 5-10 record on the season to be in seventh position and out of the finals mix.

Claremont remains clear on top of the WAFL ladder and set to claim its fourth straight minor premiership on the hunt for a third consecutive premiership, but the Tigers do have to return to the winner's list first.

The Tigers had just scraped over the line in a three-point win over East Fremantle and then four-point victory against South Fremantle before the Round 17 clash with Swan Districts they lost by 39 points at Claremont Oval.

Claremont then went on to lose its Foxtel Cup semi-final against West Adelaide so it is coming off two straight losses heading into this week's clash with Subiaco.

Three key players go out injured making Subiaco's job of upsetting Claremont for the second time this season all the harder.

Former Fremantle veteran defender Antoni Grover has gone forward in the games he's played this season with Subiaco and kicked four majors last week against East Fremantle, but again has not been able to back up and play this week against the Tigers.

Experienced premiership midfielder Rob Forrest also goes out after suffering another knee injury during last Saturday's loss to East Fremantle while young small forward Michael Wood is also out so the Lions are going to be hard pressed to find some avenues to goal against Claremont.

Ryan Herring and Brad Stevenson are the most likely inclusions to offer Subiaco some targets in attack while Michael Genovese, Kyle Halligan, Daniel Leishman and Ryan Wade are all pressing for inclusion as well for the Lions.

Claremont had the bye last weekend after losing to Swan Districts and also going down in a Foxtel Cup clash just four days later against West Adelaide, and has some key players out of their side to face Subiaco.

Captain Andrew Browne injured a quad muscle in the loss to Swan Districts a fortnight ago and goes out of team as does experienced dual premiership key position player David Crawford. Small forward Liam Smith is also out of the side.

Midfielder Ryan Neates returned in the Foxtel Cup game in Adelaide and now returns to Claremont's league line-up with Fremantle's Alex Silvagni also likely to return.

Hugo Breakey, Richard Cronin, Steven Edwards, Matthew Goyder and Jack Richardson are also pressing to come into the Tigers' league side.

Courtesy of www.wafl.com.au

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