Coach Post Match – Todd Curley Second Semi-Final

SOUTH Fremantle coach Todd Curley speaking after his team’s second semi-final loss to Claremont and looking ahead to next Sunday’s WAFL preliminary final against West Perth at Fremantle Community Bank Oval.

QUESTION: Obviously a disappointing performance, what’s your initial reaction straight after the game?
ANSWER: I just thought we were outplayed. They were better than us absolutely, they were harder at the footy, got more numbers to the ball and we watched a bit. We were beaten in all facets but the midfield really taught us a lesson and you can’t win games getting it inside-50 only 20 times. We have a bit to work through.

Q: You won’t win many games with a scoreless first half but I’m not sure it was really the fault of the forwards, they just didn’t see much of it?
A: We felt like every time we got it fought we felt like we were relatively dangerous, we just never really got it forward. We had two really good chances early that were after pretty clean ball movement but we missed them both. From there we really struggled but we’ve been better than that all year. We’ll just recover first and then prepare for next week.

Q: You would never use it as an excuse but how much did you miss Kade Stewart and Jake Florenca especially in the midfield?
A: It definitely restricted our options I suppose and normally we have a lot more we can spin through there. Both of them are pretty good players but with the way that we rolled out as a group, it would have been pretty hard for those two to have an impact too I would think.

Q: How do you balance the disappointment about the performance while staying positive for another chance next week?
A: We were terrible but you work all year to have a second chance. It will have no impact on how we go next week. Walking in to this game, we knew we just had to win a game if we wanted to get to the Grand Final and nothing has changed, we still need to win a game. But we’ll bounce back and they have been pretty resilient after setbacks in the past, and have been able to get themselves up and going so we’ll back them in to do it again.

Q: How do you also get the mix right when you analyse the game between accepting Claremont played well and focusing on the things you didn’t do well?
A: It has been a pretty basic game I reckon for 100 and whatever years, if you are desperate to win the ball and then if you don’t win it, you are desperate to win it back and you are going to be in most games. They were certainly much harder at us to win the ball initially and then they worked a lot harder than us to win it back when they didn’t have it. It’s a pretty basic game and if you don’t compete you are very little chance to win.

Q: It’s really only the disappointing performance of the whole season so can you just put it down to a blip on the radar?
A: We look at what we do when we play well. And when we look at what we do when we play well and reference against this game, there’ll be some clear things that indicate we weren’t very good. We’ll reinforce that and highlight that, and train our way, and hopefully get a few blokes back and we’ll see.

Q: Do you expect Jake and Kade to be right to return now next weekend, and does Zac Dent come into calculations after coming back in the reserves?
A: I would think that anyone who played well and got through would be in contention. Hopefully there hasn’t been anyone from today and I think everyone got through both games so that will be good. Denty got through really well actually and he’ll certainly come back into the mix, and Jake and Kade we’ll have to see at training this week how well they go.

Q: What are the chances of a surprise debutant, does Cody Ninyette come into calculations after two reserves games?
A : Well he’ll be in the mix and he is obviously a proven player. We didn’t kick many goals this week but there’s a lot of balancing acts to go through. I would think anyone that wasn’t in the team today is probably a chance next week.

Q: Thoughts now on playing West Perth in another preliminary final?
A: They’ve been a pretty good team for a long time, we’ve been a pretty consistent team and it will be another good game. We look forward to playing in a preliminary final and hopefully the week goes quick, and we get back out here again on Sunday pretty quickly.