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West Perth v Williamstown Foxtel Cup Grand Final PreviewMonday, July 21, 2014 - 1:53 PM - by Chris Pike

WEST Perth is aiming to win its second premiership in less than 12 months, to become the second WAFL team to win the Foxtel Cup and to stop Williamstown winning it for a second time in Tuesday night's grand final at Geelong's Simonds Stadium.

West Perth is the reigning WAFL premiers and now has the chance to add the Foxtel Cup to its collection up against the VFL's Williamstown this Tuesday night.

Entry to Geelong's Simonds Stadium is free for the 8.30pm bounce down local time while the game will be broadcast live on Fox Footy from 6.30pm WST.

West Perth is looking to win the Foxtel Cup for the first time after also competing in the state league's knockout competition in 2012 with the Falcons looking to match the performance of Claremont in 2012 by winning the national competition.

Williamstown, meanwhile, is looking to become the first team to win the competition twice having beaten Claremont in the 2011 grand final to claim the Foxtel Cup.

With the chance to claim $100,000 for winning (the losing team receives $40,000) and also to score a victory in front of a large national audience on the Fox Footy Channel means that both the Falcons and Seagulls will be throwing everything into the contest.

West Perth's team features 13 WAFL premiership players from last year with the nine missing made up of the departed Jason Salecic, Josh Mellington and Mark Hutchings, and unavailable Matt Fowler, Dan Hunt, Matt Guadagnin, Kody Manning and Steve Potente. Nick Rodda is an emergency.

 

Of the 22 to play on Tuesday night, Steven Browne, Jordan Jones, Jay van Berlo and Andrew Strijk have all played AFL football.

West Perth is throwing everything into trying to win the Foxtel Cup before then turning its focus back on to the WAFL with only a four-day turnaround to taking on East Perth on Saturday at Medibank Stadium.

The Falcons will fly to Melbourne on Monday, travel down to Geelong to stay Monday and Tuesday nights, do a recovery session on Wednesday before flying back to Perth that afternoon. West Perth will then conduct a training session Thursday ahead of Saturday's clash with the Royals.

Coach Bill Monaghan is happy that all of that is the best way to handle what is a difficult situation, but right now his and his team's full focus is on trying to win the Foxtel Cup on Tuesday night.

"Most players want to play Foxtel Cup. They have wanted to play right through. You play at great stadiums and you get to travel," Monaghan said.

"Ultimately whilst the prestige and the want to be a winner of the Foxtel Cup isn’t like wanting to win a WAFL premiership, it's still something that the club wants to do both for the financial rewards and because every time we are in a competition, we want to win.

"That's our motivation and we are lucky enough to be in it for the second time and we will be doing our best to win. Williamstown will be mighty hard to beat and down in Geelong I'm sure we are not going to be warm and toasty at 8.30pm on a Tuesday night in the middle of July. It's going to be foreign to us, but we are excited by it and then we will dust off and deal with East Perth after that."

Williamstown also has a strong team featuring several names familiar to WA football followers including former Fremantle and Peel defender Peter Faulks, and South Fremantle ruckman of the past two years Sean Tighe.

Then there is Kane Lambert, Jake Owen, Adam Marcon, Jack Johnstone, Michael Gibbons and Nick Sing who were all outstanding in Williamstown's semi-final win over East Perth at Patersons Stadium.

Williamstown coach, and former Hawthorn three-time premiership star, Andy Collins is looking forward to making it back-to-back Foxtel Cup wins for him personally after leading the SANFL's West Adelaide to the title last year.

"We had so many goals going into this year and winning the Foxtel Cup is one of those," Collins said.

"To have a chance at a grand final is an outstanding effort by the boys. Williamstown is the original winner of the Foxtel Cup and it would be great to get another."

FOXTEL CUP GRAND FINAL TEAMS
WILLIAMSTOWN
Backs:
Anton Woods (6), Sam Critchley (25), Peter Faulks (8)
Half backs: Jack Dorgan (11), Brad Mangan (45), Leigh Masters (10)
Centres: Jack Charleston (17), Ben Jolley (4), Adam Marcon (9)
Half forwards: Michael Gibbons (5), Scott Clouston (14), Ben Davies (3)
Forwards: Nick Sing (7), Jake Owen (44), Ryan Ferguson (27)
Followers: Sean Tighe (19), Jack Johnstone (26), Kane Lambert (23)
Interchange: David Fahey (31), Sean Hetherington (20), Stephen McCallum (13), Jake McKenzie (40)
Emergencies: Mitch Banner (15), Charlie Nastasi (36), Nick Meese (49)

WEST PERTH
Backs: Steven Browne (7), Shaun Marusic (45), Kris Shannon (22)
Half Backs: Luke Tedesco (23), Jordan Jones (5), Mitch van Berlo (41)
Centres: Ray Bartholomew (8), Jay van Berlo (18), Rohan Kerr (4)
Half Forwards: Marc Crisp (6), Marcus Adams (24), Andrew Strijk (3)
Forwards: Max Alexander (34), Anthony Tsalikis (11), Aidan Lynch (17)
Followers: Chris Keunen (19), Aaron Black (1), Shane Nelson (14)
Interchange: Brayden Antonio (2), Corey Chalmers (33), Drew Rohde (31), Laine Rasmussen (28)
Emergencies: Seva Martin (30), Matthew Johnson (16), Nick Rodda (44)