Curley focuses on having Bulldogs buy into shared vision

TODD Curley’s focus since taking over as South Fremantle coach ahead of the 2015 WAFL season has been on bringing together a talented playing group ensuring they all have a shared vision that they believe in to lead to a hopeful return to finals action for the first time since 2011.

Curley arrives at Fremantle Oval as senior coach of South Fremantle with the playing group coming off a run the last three years where at times they have shown what they are capable of, but the consistency hasn’t been there for them to at least make a finals appearance.

However, again the Bulldogs finished off the 2014 season in strong fashion to build hope that things were heading towards a positive outcome in 2015 and now Curley takes over as coach to try and steer the playing group in that direction.

With the positive signs moving forward, South Fremantle’s senior players like Craig White, Paul Mugambwa, Ashton Hams, Ryan Cook, and recent recruits James Sellar, Josh Pullman and Brock Higgins are all on board again.

Then there is the return of Cory Dell’Olio, Adam Carter, Kyle Hams and Sam Lowrie to add further experience and talent to the South Fremantle playing group on top of the recruiting of former West Coast Eagles defender Blayne Wilson.

While the playing list looks strong again on paper, what Curley’s focus has been on is getting the group all pulling in the same direction, with the one main goal and having them all buy into what he is trying to achieve as a coach.

“The group is relatively young and even our experienced players are relatively young as well, and all of them have obviously got different frustrations with how things have panned out the last few years,” Curley said.

“It’s our job to give them a vision, and a vision that they all believe in and to get everyone moving in the same direction,” Curley said.

“That’s the biggest challenge for us at the moment but they are a young and enthusiastic group with some good leaders showing the way. We’ll just keep working hard and the rest will take care of itself.”

As evidenced with the additions to the playing group this season and the returns to the club of Dell’Olio, Carter, Kyle Hams and Lowrie, the Bulldogs will be putting a heavy focus on the youth coming through and those players who are South Fremantle products.

There might be the odd exception if the need exists and the opportunity comes up like the signing of Wilson, but for the most part Curley’s focus as South Fremantle coach will be on South Fremantle products.

“The majority of our focus going forward will be developing our own players or bringing South Fremantle people back to the club,” he said.

“There might be the odd exception. We are confident that we have some really talented young players and we are very confident in our program that we can develop our own.

“Occasionally we might bring in someone from the outside but that will probably be to fill a specific need. Our primary focus will be on our own.”

Curley has been working over the pre-season on firstly getting the playing group into the physical condition that he requires and now is working heavily on the skills and game plan side of things ahead of the pre-season hit outs leading into Round 1 against West Perth on Friday March 20.

“We’ve obviously got a whole summer mapped out and you’re not going to get better overnight so we are looking to put little planks in place, and as the summer gets longer we will put more and more together,” Curley said.

“We don’t want to overload with game plan at this stage, we just want to be fit and have everyone available because overall we have a pretty young list.

“It’s exciting times getting ready for a new season and the enthusiasm of the players and their willingness to take on everything we’ve thrown at them so far has been good. That’s all we can ask.”