Royals romp to win over Demons

East Perth have kicked the highest score of the season at Lathlain Park this afternoon, defeating Perth by 92 points in a spiteful encounter.

The Royals opened up a handy buffer in the second term and couldn’t be headed on route to their 28.14 (182) to 14.6 (90) win.

The score line was the highest recorded in 2014, beating West Perth’s 22.17 (149) in a win over East Perth in round four.

The result took the Demons one step closer to this season’s wooden spoon.

And the bad news could continue for the perennial cellar-dwellers, who can expect a number of players to be cited for behind-the-ball incidents in the second half.

Josh Smith finished the game with six goals, with nearly all East Perth players racking up the stats in the rout.

The Royals’ Bernie Naylor medallist gave his side the perfect start less than a minute after the opening bounce, taking a strong mark opposed to Chris Billings and converting.

Jarrod Oakley-Nicholls added a second shortly after, but the opening stages of the game did not resemble the one-sided affair it would become.

The Demons kicked their first through Callum Collard and while Thomas Shanahan soon answered back for the Royals with a goal from his first kick in league football, there was momentum building for the home side.

Nick Kane evened the scores by kicking two mirror-image goals from 40m within two minutes, but after another quick exchange of goals, the Royals had a seven-point lead at the quarter-time break.

The Royals slowly increased their advantage in the second term, but Perth were doing their best to make the game a contest.

However two brain snaps from Billings within a minute undid all of their hard work.

After giving away a 50-metre penalty and allowing Smith to kick his second goal from the goalsquare, Billings chose to go on with it with Garry Moss, causing the umpires to award another free kick in front of goals before the ball had travelled back to the centre square.

The resultant goal gave East Perth a 32-point lead in the shadows of half time.

From there, the game descended into a scrap, with the Royals scoring at will, the Demons getting angry and the umpires pinging them for it.

The number of free kicks paid against the Demons seemed to do anything but bring the game under control, as the home side grew angrier the more the whistle blew.

A massive run of goals from East Perth’s senior players gave the visitors a 65-point lead at the last break, with the game continuing to blow out from there.