It wasn’t the response Peel Thunder had hoped for over the Easter break, with the home side going down to West Perth by 35 points at Rushton Park.

The Thunder put in a disappointing first-half performance to trail the Falcons by 47 points at the main break.

A third-quarter comeback gave them a chance at victory but West Perth got back on top in the final quarter to win 15.18 (108) to 11.7 (73) .

Fremantle supporters would have been pleased with the performance of Matt Taberner, who kicked three goals from 25 possessions.

Cameron Sutcliffe chimed in with 23 possessions and two goals, while Darcy Tucker had 27 possessions.

But it wasn’t enough to beat the visitors, who were coming off a 103-point loss to South Fremantle the previous week.

West Perth jumped out of the blocks with two goals inside the first eight minutes of the game, while it took Peel until the 23^rd minute to hit the scoreboard through a goal from Brayden Lawler.

But things got worse for the Thunder when Fremantle midfielder Nick Suban was taken off after a head knock.

Team mate Ryan Nyhuis said Suban’s loss was tough to cover.

“Obviously having a player down doesn’t help,” he said.

“We had to change a few things, players playing in different positions later in the game, so it probably had an impact.

“He’s a senior player, so we missed his leadership out there for sure.”

The second quarter was dominated by West Perth, whose ball use was much cleaner than that of the home side.

But the third quarter was the complete opposite, as Peel increased the tempo and kicked two goals in the first two minutes, through Blair Bell and Luke Strnadica.

The Thunder piled on another four for the quarter and held the inaccurate Falcons to just six points, reducing the margin to 15 points at the final change.

Nyhuis said Peel had an improved mindset in the third term.

“We went in at half time a fair way down and (coach) Cam Shepherd gave us a pretty strong message, so we came out and started playing the game the way we wanted to play; controlled the ball,” he said.

The last quarter was all West Perth, as the visitors locked the ball inside their forward 50 and extended the final margin to 35 points.

Peel has a bye this weekend and then faces East Perth on the 29 April at Rushton Park.

Nyhuis said the bye would help the Thunder re-focus.

“We’ve got a week off now, so we’ll come back a lot harder but I think staying composed will make the difference for us moving forward,” he said.