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Always look forward to clashes against the Royals. Generally are very competitive games. Good to see them in the top 5 and it seems like they are really flying at the moment. Both sides coming off a bye and last start win.
From Swans point of view, the players will want to show that their current position on the ladder is not indicative of their capabilities. East Perth will be keen to continue their winning steak which may well lead them to a top 3 place and a chance to have a crack at the flag.
The Royals have a reasonable record at Bassendean, pretty much 50/50 over the past decade although Swans have won the last two there.
Reasonable weather is forecast so it should be a good contest
 

As you've previously said, mikeh, Swans may rue their early-season close losses and probably need to win every game on the run home to make the finals (shades of East Perth in 1978 but I'm sure there are more recent examples).
Obviously, from a Royals' perspective, I hope the blue-and-blacks prevail, but I suspect this will be a tougher challenge for EP than some of their more recent victories.
Given Swans won the 2021 and 2022 clashes at Basso relatively easily, I hope that EP is really switched on come Saturday.
Swans' recent victory at Joondalup affirmed that they can beat any team on their day. 

Yes ADGM. The magic numbers were 1, 5 , 7, 2 and 4 which were the margins of the losses in 5 out of the first 7 games. If we had managed to win just 2 of those 5, we would be still very much in the race but thats footy I guess. A couple of those losses were more an inability to finish off under pressure or poor skills rather than bad luck so its something the team can learn so that some of these results can be reversed in future.

I think most footy followers at the time got caught up in East Perths run in 1978 which culminated in a last round showdown at Leederville against the Cardies. I was one of over 20000 at that game which was the 7th win in a row for East Perth which funny enough got them into the 2nd semi. A loss would have seen them out of the finals.  They lost the 2nd semi to Perth but thumped South Fremantle in the preliminary before the epic finale which was probably the 2nd best Grand Final I have witnessed ( sorry I am biased but 2010 surpassed that match)

mikeh wrote:

Yes ADGM. The magic numbers were 1, 5 , 7, 2 and 4 which were the margins of the losses in 5 out of the first 7 games. If we had managed to win just 2 of those 5, we would be still very much in the race but thats footy I guess. A couple of those losses were more an inability to finish off under pressure or poor skills rather than bad luck so its something the team can learn so that some of these results can be reversed in future.

I think most footy followers at the time got caught up in East Perths run in 1978 which culminated in a last round showdown at Leederville against the Cardies. I was one of over 20000 at that game which was the 7th win in a row for East Perth which funny enough got them into the 2nd semi. A loss would have seen them out of the finals.  They lost the 2nd semi to Perth but thumped South Fremantle in the preliminary before the epic finale which was probably the 2nd best Grand Final I have witnessed ( sorry I am biased but 2010 surpassed that match)

Mike, I can perfectly understand you rating the 2010 GF as your No.1.
Both the 2010  and 1978 GFs were rippers - particularly if you supported either Swans or EP - with each highlighted by a display of individual brilliance (Andrew Krakopuer and Peter Bosustow).
I was also at Leederville Oval (at the tech school end) in Round 21, 1978, and the official crowd was 24,567.
At Lathlain Park that afternoon, I recall that Claremont led an inaccurate Perth by 1 point with not long to play.
Had the Tigers won and all other margins stood, they would've finished 2nd, followed by EP, WP and SF in 5th.
I think Rob Wiley kicked a late goal to give the Demons a 5-point lead, pushing EP up to 2nd, WP to 3rd and the Tigers to 4th on the "instant ladder", just 0.21% above SF.
Another Wiley goal (I might have this think wrong but I think he kicked the Demons' final 2 majors) saw SF and Claremont swap places (with a difference of just 0.10%), despite the Bulldogs unexpectedly losing to Swans at the port.
The WAFL would love a repeat of the 1978 final round this year.
   

If Swans could somehow beat East Perth this week and Subiaco next week they may start considering a possible run as 5 of their last 7 games are at Bassendean and they have some very winnable games after those two fixtures. Very long odds though and East Perths run in 1978 was unusual. I think Claremont did something similar in 1964 but I can't remember too many other occasions where teams came back from that far behind. 
 

Swans are starting to get their A graders back from injury. Looks like a decent team this week.  Jesse Glass-McCasker and Will Collins named in reserves. Also Chris Jones back after some time out. We will need a good team in to be competitive with the Royals who are in great form

My initial thought was we should win the game fairly easily. On closer examination Swans have quality players throughout. With EP four games inside the top five effectively I wonder if we will turn up to be honest.

Archie, enough already. I don’t want anymore history lessons of the end of 1978.
The nightmares will start recurring.

 

The biggest problem we normally have at Basso,albeit with far inferior lineups,is maximizing the scoring at the wind favoured guilford end,so hopefully we will rectify that problem tomorrow,and  it will also us give us a good guide as to how well we.ve coped with the loss of Scott Jones,as he was our best player when we narrowly won the first clash of the season.

Cesspit wrote:

Archie, enough already. I don’t want anymore history lessons of the end of 1978.
The nightmares will start recurring.

Sorry for bringing Demon skeletons out of the closet, Cess. 

After losing grand finals to you blokes in 1966, 1967, 1968 and 1976, I reckon we were long overdue to finally win one in 1978.