ASSUMING Scott Lycett plays league footy, we can’t think too much about the role he might have for East Perth when we face them at Leederville Oval on WA Day.
I don’t think there would be much benefit in bringing in an extra tall.
We’ve got tall options in Scott Simpson, Tyler Keitel and Mark Hamilton.
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READ NOWIf we were to include another big man, we would lose the flexibility that has been a strength for us this season.
It’s an unusual scenario this week in that we play on Monday and West Coast feature on Saturday with a bye next week, so their travelling emergencies could suit up against us on WA Day.
This is another reason there’s little benefit in spending time thinking about how East Perth might line up.
The Royals squad is somewhat irrelevant to us.
Obviously we can’t ignore it completely, but we can’t let it be the driver to how we play or prepare.
I don’t look at a lot of AFL football outside of when West Perth is facing East Perth or Peel.
In the lead up to those games, I’ll follow news reports and look at injury lists.
So the preparation is a little different to when we face a standalone WAFL club, but not a drastic change.
Chris Keunen, Joe Morrow and Ben King return from injury this week but they’ll do so in limited minutes through the reserves.
We have two six-day breaks coming up between games so we want to keep them fresh if we happen to need them in the next few weeks.
They’ve all trained extremely well so I don’t doubt their capacity to play senior footy.
We’ll have one forced change with Kody Manning out through suspension as well as a broken cheekbone he suffered while playing in WA’s win over Victoria.
It’s unclear for how long he’ll be out with the injury.
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