Jackson Harwood - PFL Men's State Coach (08.06.2026)

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**Mark Duffield** (0:45)
Welcome back to the SENWA Studio out here at Upto Stadium. On this Monday morning in Perth, possible afternoon storm today in the city. It's currently 19.8 degrees, building to a top of 21 degrees later in the day.
In the next hour, we will be previewing the big clash, of course, the big freeze clash between Collingwood and Melbourne at the MCG. It's going to be huge. Of course, the first one we've had since the passing of Neil Danaher. But now we're going to talk to the Perth Football League Men's State coach. His name is Jackson Harwood. He led WA to a momentous and ground breaking win over the VAFA last year. And they'll be taking on WA Country on June 19 Jackson, welcome.

**Jackson Harwood** (1:38)
Yeah, mate, thanks for having me.

**Mark Duffield** (1:40)
So, mate, I've got a query for you right off the top. I'm a country boy and I'm seeing some country names in your squad.
What's going on there? So, you've got Kate Stewart. He's one. There's a Bletchenden. Is a Bletchenden one of the Pindjaly Bletchendons? Is he? How are you allowed to have country boys in your squad?

**Jackson Harwood** (1:58)
Yeah, well, mate, I'm a country boy as well. Liam, one of the assistants, my assistant coaches, he's a country boy as well. So, yeah, there's a bit of a flavor going through there for sure.

**Mark Duffield** (2:09)
Do you know whether they'll have some city boys in their team? Because obviously a few blokes do go down from the city and play in the country. Would there be some maybe metropolitan lads donning the country jumper?

**Jackson Harwood** (2:21)
I would hazard a pretty strong guess that there might be quite a few running around, to be honest.
I think players from both squads would probably have a good knowledge of each other, having played at higher levels together before they're now where they are. So I think there might even be some family members running against each other. I'm not sure. We'll see.

**Mark Duffield** (2:40)
Oh, look out. Well, that'll be interesting. So Tim Gossage wants to know, Lockie Martinez has been tearing it up at Wembley and isn't in the squad.
Is it just A grade or do you have A and B and C graders in there? And if you do, how do you weigh the performances of, say, someone who's dominating B grade or C grade, as opposed to someone who's playing in A grade?

**Jackson Harwood** (3:07)
Yeah, I thought Goss might have mentioned that.
Yeah, it's a tough one. Like obviously, you're probably looking a little bit stronger sides of the B grade space first and foremost. Again, it's positional. Like what are we chasing? I think it's stronger teams in the A grade are performing really well. And you see a high contingent of players from those squads. I'm also backing up guys from last year that helped us get the job done over in Victoria. So there's a whole myriad of reasons. Lachie's definitely probably a bit stiff. He's probably not the only one that's quite stiff, to be honest. It's a really strong squad and I've had really good buy in.
So yeah, I mean, I think there's three, there was gonna be four from the B-grade space, which is really good. And that's probably more than what's been in the last few years, if I'm honest. So yeah, there's a few from, there was three from North Freyja originally coming, one was unavailable and one from Whitford. So yeah, there is a contingent from the B-grade space. Obviously it's more predominantly dominated from the A-grade space. The B-grade don't even have a buy that weekend either. Not that's necessarily the reason, but some coaches don't necessarily want to put up too many towards me.

**Mark Duffield** (4:19)
Now, is this a one-off for the year, the game against Country WA or do you get a return match against the VAFA or the South Australian equivalent at some point?