Coach Post Match – Todd Curley Round 1

WHAT South Fremantle coach Todd Curley had to say following the Round 1 WAFL victory over West Perth at Fremantle Community Bank® Oval.

Curley oversaw a second straight Round 1 win by 35 points over West Perth for South Fremantle and here he runs down what he thought of the performance, and looks forward to this Saturday's clash with Swan Districts at Steel Blue Oval.

QUESTION: After conceding the first two goals, that was an impressive way to start the season?
ANSWER: It was a funny one, it was a good start after a poor start I suppose. The first five minutes wasn’t great but it was a good show of character from the group that hopefully we've grown a bit. The rest of the day we were pretty good for large periods.

Q: To be able to play that well against the team that made last year's grand final, does that make it more encouraging?
A: It's just one game really and we were in the exact same position this time last year. You work all summer trying to get better and for large periods of the game we probably saw passages of play that we've tried to improve that worked. We certainly got it forward a lot more to give our forwards more opportunity than we did last year, I think. We defended OK at times but we still have some areas to improve. The main thing I think that we are trying to drive into our players is that it's their group, and the success that they have is in their hands. We want them to be really strong to drive what they want to do and that their standards can improve things on the ground, they don’t have to wait for us.

Q: The move of Josh Pullman to the defence worked a treat. He marked strongly, read the ball well and kept a quality forward Nick Rodda quiet. He looked a natural there?
A: He is one of our leaders and probably defensively key backs is an area that we thought we needed to do something in. By getting Mason Shaw back in and we are really keen on playing Zac Strom forward so that gave us an opportunity. I think when you are looking to make a change having someone who you really trust is who you look to. That's why we looked to Josh and he's lapped up every minute of it since he's gone there. He played well but he has hardly played there so he will continue to get better.

Q: Blayne Wilson was also back to the form he was in during the first half of 2015 controlling the game from centre half-back?
A: He was pretty good Blayne. He had a lot of the footy but he has missed a little bit of training. In terms of his ball use and decision-making he will get better, but I think collectively when we play well we get really good pressure from our forwards and our mids which helps our backs. And I thought the pressure from our forwards and mids was good.

Q: Then the forward-line looked good. Zac Strom was a strong marking target at centre half-forward, and then Mason Shaw and Ben Saunders looked capable of causing a lot of damage?
A: That's the aim. The thing about Zac Strom is that he is an enormous athlete, is really strong now and if you kick it to him he looks like he's either going to mark it or make a contest. He was fantastic in the first game and we are confident he can keep that going. And then we are really exciting about having Ben Saunders and Mason Shaw in our forward 50. They will get better at playing together, but we are really confident they can be dangerous for us and we'll keep working on getting better at having players reading off them as well at ground level.

Q: You recruited Shane Hockey to add extra grunt to the midfield and that's exactly what he delivered?
A: There's no doubt about that we identified that we had to get better at that contested inside game, and he has been fantastic since he's come in the door really. He is really teaching our young guys and when you have played your whole life as an inside mid, it just seems to come naturally. His second quarter especially I thought was really good for us.

Q: How much does having Hockey help free up the likes of Hams, Kelly and the Verrier brothers to do what they do best?
A: I think just when you get under pressure if you've played in there your whole life it becomes second nature to you. He is really good in and under, but we were good all round. We really want to develop a group of midfielders who can go through there, we don’t want to rely on too few because it's a long year. Schloithe didn’t play in there much, Cook didn’t play in there much, Steve Verrier probably didn’t too much either so we hope we can share the load.

Q: Anything you didn’t like?
A: I think we still allowed them to score a bit easy at times but they were clearly things we can work on and get better at. But overall for Round 1 we got the four points so beautiful and I think we got through unscathed with no injuries. We'll take that and bank it definitely.

Q: Aside from Brock Higgins, the group is pretty healthy at this point?
A: Brock is still probably a month away and obviously Jarrod Parry is out for the year so they're the two big ones, but health wise we are in not too bad shape. Touchwood.

Q: Now head out to Bassendean to play Swan Districts this Saturday?
A: One of the big things we are trying to improve as a club is turning up to train consistently with the right preparation to get better, and turn up every week to play. That's regardless of how you went the week before, that means nothing. Swans did get us out there last year after we had a pretty good start to the year so it's a good challenge for us.