West Australian Football

Subiaco, West Perth, South Fremantle and Swan Districts are all ready and raring to go for this year’s WAFL finals series.

The exciting series was launched this morning in front of a football-hungry crowd, including Minster for Sport and Recreation John Kobelke and Shadow Minister for Sport and Recreation Barry House.

The first and second semi-finals will be played this Saturday, September 6, with South Fremantle hosting Swan Districts in a do-or-die clash at Fremantle Oval and Subiaco taking on West Perth at Medibank Stadium where the winner will earn direct entry into the 2008 WAFL grand final.

“Subiaco will be hard to beat, but no one gives us or anyone else a hope so we’ll just go out there and play,” Falcons coach Todd Curley said.

As for Swan Districts coach Brian Dawson, he knows he has an exciting side. For the first time since 1994 Swan Districts will contest the finals in all three grades – league, reserves and colts.

“Our colts won the premiership last year and we knew we had a bunch of talented kids who were always going to get their chance to play, but a few more stepped up than we thought,” Dawson said.

One of those exciting talents is potential No.1 draft pick Nick Naitanui.

“Nick is a great talent. Part of his football education is to play in different positions. In the finals we’ll use him where we think we can get the best value out of him.”

The Bulldogs lost a grip on second position after losing their last two games of the home-and-away season.

“We are disappointed we dropped our last two games. We’ve had a few injuries but it’s a whole new ball game in the finals and we are hopeful of getting Paul Duffield back as well as Tim Malseed and Hayden North who didn’t play last week,” captain Toby McGrath said.

“We know what it takes to get up there and beat the likes of Subiaco in the finals and we are looking forward to taking on an exciting Swan Districts team.

“We know they will be hard to beat and will be fired up and know that they beat us in a first semi-final a few years ago.”

Finals fixtures:

First semi-final:
South Fremantle v Swan Districts
Fremantle Oval

Second semi-final:
Subiaco v West Perth
Medibank Stadium

Preliminary final: Saturday, September 13

Grand final: Sunday, September 21