Pullman continues to thrive from reliable forward to outstanding defender

JOSH Pullman has been one of South Fremantle’s great success stories moving into defence in 2016 and he has no doubt that learning at training by playing on the Bulldogs’ dynamic forwards has helped make his transition work so well.

Pullman is just one of three South Fremantle players who will play in Sunday’s preliminary final against Peel Thunder at Fremantle Community Bank Oval who has previously experienced a WAFL Grand Final before.

That was back in 2008 when Pullman graduated from being a colts premiership captain at Swan Districts to cementing a spot at centre half-forward in the league side at Swans who made it all the way to the Grand Final before losing to Subiaco.

But Pullman only managed eight games at league level the next two years and despite a seven-goal haul against Peel Thunder in 2010, he missed the premiership of that year and then went on to a three-year journey to Queensland.

He returned a married man and also was happy to sign with South Fremantle who saw a place for the hard leading, strong marking and usually accurate kicking forward.

Pullman did well in 2014 and 2015 as well kicking 46 goals in 32 games but coming into 2016 with Mason Shaw returning for the Bulldogs and Zac Strom doing well as a lead up centre half-forward, coach Todd Curley saw that Pullman could fill a role down back.

It has turned out to work a treat with Pullman cementing his spot and becoming one of the best backmen in the WAFL where he has proven not only capable of shutting down some of the best tall forwards, but he has done well taking strong contested intercept marks.

He again did the job last Sunday in South Fremantle’s losing second semi-final to Subiaco holding Hamish Shepheard goalless and that was on the back of having a good battle with West Perth’s Michael Lourey in the qualifying final win.

Pullman might be new to playing as a defender, but he has now played 72 WAFL games and well over 100 at state league level taking into account his three years in Queensland.

And he is one of only three South Fremantle players who will play on Sunday who have played in a Grand Final – with Blayne Wilson and Ashton Hams the others.

The 27-year-old is looking forward to seeing how South Fremantle comes out against Peel on Sunday in the preliminary final with a place in the Grand Final on the line.

“It’s been a good couple of games to get into our younger guys from an experience perspective to learn what finals is all about,” Pullman told 91.3 SportFM.

“We’ve certainly been happy with parts of both games but it’s been a bit of chalk and cheese in terms of the outcome with the two results. But even against Subi we took away some really good things and we’re hoping to get another dip against them next week.”

Pullman appeared settled as South Fremantle’s main tall target in attack for 2015 and he delivered some consistent form, but he was all ears when Curley came to him during the pre-season mentioning the chance to try him down back.

Despite having played his whole career previously as a forward and now admitting to still learning from being at the other end of the field, Pullman has looked to be a natural and it’s a moved he is enjoying more than he ever imagined.

“I have enjoyed it. It’s been a steep learning curve and it’s one that even now I’m still trying to wrap my head around at times because I’m a bit of a slow learner,” he said.

“But our back-line unit has stacked some really good form together the past six or eight weeks and it’s largely down to our defensive system holding up really well in high pressure games. Our midfield has been putting on some awesome pressure as well which makes our job down there a lot easier.

“And our line coach Arthur Maskos gets us talls to really back ourselves to read the ball and try to win our own footy as well. I imagine there’s a little bit of transfer from being a forward that helps know where your opponents want to go as well so you can try to get in the way of that.”

While Pullman feels that having that experience as a forward helps him now as a defender because he has that natural insight into where they might lead or how they will position themselves along with learning off the best forwards he’s playing on, it’s at training he has learned the most.

Getting to regularly battle against the likes of Saunders, Shaw and Strom is the thing that Pullman feels has had the biggest impact on his rapid growth as a defender.

“Another thing that’s probably understated is that us defenders get to practice on a really competent forward-line during the week at training,” he said.

“We’ve got Mason Shaw, Ben Saunders and Zac Strom so that really helps us develop as well. It’s certainly a good back-line to be playing in and we hope to get to job done this week as well.”

Pullman’s job gets no easier this Sunday in the preliminary final with his likely job trying to limit the influence of Michael Apeness.

If not him it will be the resting ruckmen in either Zac Clarke, Jack Hannath or Jonathon Griffin so he’s ready for a tough day individually but he’s confident the Bulldogs can get the job done to qualify for the Grand Final.

“It’s no secret that they’ve got some massive talent there and a pretty good balance in their side with a lot of dangerous players, but we’re just focused on us and what we’re doing this week,” Pullman said.

“We take a lot of internal confidence that if we can stack four quarters together of our brand of footy that we’ll be able to mix it with anyone, including a team as talented as this Peel one.”