WAFLW Round 2 Wrap Up

Our WAFLW team hosted last years’ Grand Finalists, who were coming off a loss to Claremont in the Grand Final replay game, while our Falcons were coming off the historic win over East Perth, even though it was going to be a tough task, it was a chance to frank the effort and win from Round 1.

While it has been well documented during the pre-season about the new look side made up of players from last year, plenty of retuning Falcons and lots of talent bought in from the Amateur Community, the task of getting everyone to gel in the heat of battle is the next challenge.

West Perth faced East Fremantle three times last year and the results unfortunately reflected a brand new team entering the competition with the closest margin an unflattering 10 goals, but that memory was definitely not a focus and the way the game played out it is now erased.

West Perth came out firing right from the first bounce and were doing all the attacking and getting good numbers to every contest. The few times East Fremantle were able to get into their forward 50 they encountered Karla Stagg, Brooke Hongell, Jess Roper, they were well supported by Megan Norbury and Kayla van den Heever, who were working back hard from the midfield. West Perth finished the quarter with just three points they did hold East Fremantle scoreless. The great positive though was how dangerous the Falcons looked taking it inside 50 and how much East Fremantle were second guessing.

The second quarter was similar to the first with West Perth’s intensity right up and two set shots from East Fremantle within scoring range were both denied right on the line for no score, in fact one of those turned into the opening goal of the game to Liliana Grassenis, who finished off a great string of fast running possessions along the wing.

East Fremantle were able to eventually grind out a score, be it only a behind 6 mins into the second quarter, then a string of shots all ending is behinds, still had the Sharks behind.

Jeevna Heer on the wing was causing headaches, Liliana up forward and using her defensive strength able to keep it there. It wasn’t just the defenders who were applying good pressure as Katherine Bennett, Bianca Webb and Tia Bergin were doing very well across the half forward line with strong intercepts. East Fremantle finally managed their first goal of the game right on the half time siren, which levelled the scores at 1.4 (10).

Even after the break the story continued with West Perth well up for the fight and their ability to rebound from deep in the defensive 50. There was a change to the narrative though which saw East Fremantle starting to win the territory battle, yet still unable to break through the barrier of Megan Norbury who didn’t stop running, Brooke Hongell who was showing why she is a Co-Captain, Erin O’Brien who missed all of 2022, showing how important she is and With Karla Stagg and Jess Roper doing all they can on the last line.

After 10 minutes of persistence East Fremantle found a small opening a scored their second and by quarters end were able to add another, for a lead of 13 points, so while they may have gained some ascendancy, they were certainly not clear.

With the heat finally taking toll on all the players it was the ability and experience of East Fremantle to control the ball by hand and foot that enabled them to grab another couple of goals to eventually wear down a very plucky West Perth, who showed they will be a competitive team in their second year. East Fremantle taking the points 5.10 (40) to West Perth 1.6 (12) a vast improvement from the results in 2022.