East Fremantle is preparing to play South Fremantle in Monday’s WA Day Derby without gun ruckman Brynn Teakle after he was taken in the AFL Mid-Season draft.
North Melbourne picked up the 24-year-old with pick 15 in Wednesday’s midseason draft, giving him a second chance at AFL level after playing six games at Port Adelaide in 2022 and 2023.
Teakle is ready-made for the AFL level, however, East Fremantle is forced to plan for life without him in the ruck for the remainder of the season.
On Monday, East Fremantle takes on arch-rivals South Fremantle in the trademark WA Day Derby at Fremantle Oval.
Speaking to SportFM ahead of Monday’s match, East Fremantle coach Bill Monaghan says it’s disappointing from a state league perspective, but they fully support Teakle’s next chapter in his career.
“If you look just purely from the player’s point of view, it’s what they strive for. It’s their goal. We 100 per cent send Brynn away with our best wishes and hope has a long successful AFL career,” he said.
“The other side of the coin is that it’s disappointing…that they need to do it at this point of the season and interrupt local and state league seasons. But we move on and, we can’t change it.
“It evens out in the end and we’re lucky we’ve got another couple of blokes who can step up and we still think we’ve got a strong enough squad to challenge. We’ll see if that’s right starting this week on Monday.”
With Teakle out, Monaghan reveals that Jono Marsh has a chance to front up and play in the Derby.
Marsh has played three games this season in rounds one, two and eight. In round two, he kicked seven goals and had 12 marks against Claremont.
“He’s had a slight change in work circumstances and it’s not really my job to go too much into the details of that, but our expectation is that he’ll play,” said Monaghan.
“It’s not something that we’re going to be able to hide. So our expectation is today that he’s more likely than not to play.
“We’ll just get to training tonight, we’ll finish off our selection and if he’s there tonight training and puts up his hand then he’ll play.”
Heading into the much-anticipated derby, East Fremantle sits fourth on the ladder, with South Fremantle ahead of them in third with one more win.
The two sides have been bitter rivals for decades and is boasted as the largest attended home-and-away match on the WAFL calender – expecting similar numbers to front up this Monday.
While Monaghan encourages his players to know and be respectful of the history associated with the grudge match, he also invites them to forge their own.
“It’s something that we’ve got to be respectful of and talk about and encourage our players to know their history,” he said.
“At the end of the day, what happened in 1928, and what happened in 1978 is somewhat irrelevant to what the players do when they step out this week.”
“That’s our focus and if they can draw on some inspiration, then that’s wonderful. But we need to forge our own history and make sure that we’re doing what we can to see the lamp lighters going forward for the next phase of our history.”
The Fremantle Derby will be broadcast live on SportFM with bouncedown at 1.10 pm on Monday, June 3rd.
IMAGE: The West Australian