Round 9 Preview – Claremont v Peel ThunderSaturday, June 2, 2018 - 8:19 AM - by Chris Pike

CLAREMONT and Peel Thunder come into their Round 9 WAFL clash both sitting two games and percentage outside the top five making it a potentially season-defining contest for both.

The Tigers and both come into Saturday's Round 9 contest at Claremont Oval with 2-5 records to be in sixth and seventh positions respectively and are only separated by 4.03 percentage points so they could hardly be closer.

With just two wins from seven games and with the top five teams all currently having at least four wins coming into Round 9, that only makes Saturday's clash at Claremont Oval all the more significant.

A win for either Claremont or Peel to improve to a 3-5 record will likely have them just a game outside of the top five by the end of the round and their seasons well and truly.

However, for the loser of the game to slip to 2-6 in an 18-game season would make it a long road back to remain in the finals hunt through the second half of the season.

Claremont comes into Saturday's game having recorded its second win of the season last Saturday beating South Fremantle by a goal at Fremantle Community Bank Oval.

The Tigers were on top most of the afternoon but it still took the last goal of the game kicked by Tom Lee for them to come away with the victory and snap a four-match losing run.

Peel, meanwhile, has lost its last two matches and five of its last six since beating East Fremantle back in Round 1 to begin its premiership defence. 

The Thunder's lone win in that time did come at the expense of Claremont only back in Round 6 when they prevailed by 20 points at Bendigo Bank Stadium.

Peel has now won the past four meetings against Claremont but Saturday will be the Thunder's first visit to Claremont Oval since the venue's redevelopment. 

The Thunder last played at Claremont Oval in Round 13, 2013 which was a 53-point loss to the Tigers. Peel's last win at Claremont Oval was in Round 11, 2012 and overall Claremont has won 20 of its 23 matches at Tigerland against the Thunder.

From the Claremont team that beat South Fremantle by six points last Saturday, there are no changes at this stage with forwards Beau Maister and Alex Manuel still sidelined.

But the Tigers have added Morgan Davies, Kaiden Gilbert and Matthew Palfrey to the squad to take on Peel at Claremont Oval on Saturday.

With the household changes made by Fremantle in the AFL ahead of the clash with Collingwood at the MCG on Sunday, there's mass changes at Peel because of that and as coach Cam Shepherd tries to get a response from last week's disappointing 24-point loss to East Fremantle.

Because of the changes at the Dockers, the Thunder will welcome Danyle Pearce, Michael Johnson, Brandon Matera and Hayden Ballantyne into their line-up. Those four players alone bring with them 769 games of AFL experience.

But on the flipside, Tom Sheridan, Shane Kersten, Michael Apeness, Stefan Giro, Taylin Duman and Scott Jones have been called up from that Peel team that lost to the Sharks last week and only managed to kick four goals for the game.

They are far from the only changes for Peel as well with the Thunder adding Ryan Nyhuis, Corey Morris, Brad McGowan, Lloyd Meek, Alex Cohen, Michael Tassone, Josh Mathers, Keegan Power, Kaine Ah Chee and Brett Milward to the group as well.

Tom North, Mitch Crowden, Leroy Jetta and Matthew Piggott join the list of players out for the Thunder as well.

CLAREMONT (2-5, 6th) v PEEL THUNDER (2-5, 7th) – CLAREMONT OVAL, SATURDAY 2.15PM
Selected teams, live stats 
Broadcast – 91.3 SportFM, Footy Radio