Round 21 Preview – Peel Thunder v Perth

PEEL Thunder can go a long way to securing third position and a WAFL finals double chance if it can beat Perth at Bendigo Bank Stadium on Saturday.

Coming off the bye, Peel returns to action this Saturday in Mandurah up against the bottom placed Perth.

Prior to the bye, the Thunder had also lost their past two matches by 16 points to Swan Districts and 46 points to Subiaco to leave them vulnerable in third position.

However, they do remain in third position coming into Saturday’s clash with Perth with a 10-7 record.

With the third best percentage in the competition only behind the top two teams Subiaco and South Fremantle, a win for Peel on Saturday and they will remain third and be a good chance of staying there with games to finish the season against East Fremantle and South Fremantle.

But a loss for Peel to the Demons and suddenly the Thunder could begin sliding down the ladder and they would still need to win one of those two remaining games to guarantee themselves of playing finals at all in their premiership defence.

Perth returned to the bottom of the WAFL ladder with a 99-point defeat at Lathlain Park at the hands of Claremont last Saturday to leave the Demons on a 10-game losing run.

Those losses have at an average of 62.3 points with Perth’s percentage slipping below that of East Fremantle to see the Demons in bottom place.

But a win on Saturday and the Demons will be a good chance of moving off the bottom and of avoiding the wooden spoon altogether in 2017.

Peel won its only clash so far this season against Perth by 90 points at Lathlain Park in Round 10.

The Thunder have dominated the Demons in recent times as well winning the past eight meetings by an average of 42.8 points. Perth’s last win against Peel was Round 7, 2014.

Peel went down to Swan Districts by 16 points two weeks ago and from that team, Josh Deluca, Danyle Pearce and Matt Taberner go out due to being with Fremantle in Sydney for Saturday’s clash against the Swans at the SCG.

The Thunder will regain Dockers pair Tom Sheridan and Ryan Nyhuis, though, to help offset those losses.

Josh McMahon, Lachlan Mitchell, James Kirby, Travis Duman, Brett Milward, Corey Morris and Luke Strnadica are the other Peel players in the mix at the selection table to take on the Demons.

Perth started impressively once again last week as has been its trend as the best starting team in the WAFL this season. The Demons average 23 points in first quarters for the season and just 49 over the last three. They also average conceding just 24 points in first terms and 91 over the last three.

But the Demons just haven’t been able to keep it going after quarter-time through the course of the season.

From that team that lost to Claremont last Saturday, Nelson Ansey and Brennan Stack go out.

Brent Latch, Cody Ninyette, Tom Gooch, Brad McPhail and Joseph Ugle are all in the selection mix to take on Peel at Bendigo Bank Stadium on Saturday.

PEEL THUNDER (10-7, 3rd) v PERTH (2-16, 9th) – BENDIGO BANK STADIUM, SATURDAY 2.15PM
Selected teams, live stats
Broadcast – 91.3 SportFM