Coach Post Match – Todd Curley Round 19

WHAT South Fremantle coach Todd Curley had to say following the Round 19 victory over East Fremantle at Fremantle Community Bank Oval to keep the Bulldogs in second position on the WAFL ladder. South Fremantle now takes on Perth this Saturday in Carnarvon.

QUESTION: The pressure was on at three quarter-time after they came back pretty hard in the third quarter. You had the breeze but still had to do the hard work and you would have pleased they did it?
ANSWER: It was probably pleasing that we got back to playing our way a bit. The first half was pretty good and at half-time we always knew that they were going to come out and respond, and they did. We lost our composure for a little bit but we finished off OK which was pleasing.

Q: You started slowly again conceding the first two goals but dominated the first half after that. Did you feel like you got full reward for that?
A: Probably not but we certainly thought that our brand of play was a lot better, and a lot closer to how we want to play. It's been a strange couple of months with some funny scheduling and we've had seven out of our last eight games that have been wet. It's sort of been hard to gauge how we've been going but we certainly made a real focus on winning the ball first, and we did that. We probably didn’t capitalise as much as we should have early and then gave up two easy scores in the first quarter that were undefendable.

Q: Tim Kelly was one player you knew needed to lift after a quiet few weeks and he was back to his form that saw him picked in the state game?
A: He gave us a real lift when he came onto the ground early and I thought his intensity was good and he was nice and clean around the ball again. It was his best game for a while but we haven’t been going that great as a team, so he wasn’t the only one to step up.

Q: Were you impressed with the impact Haiden Schloithe was able to have in his first game back even though he looked good in the reserves last week too?
A: He worked pretty hard when he was out with his foot so it was a credit to him that he was able to come in and have a real impact. He had a game in the reserves last week just to get some run in his legs to make sure everything was OK. I thought when he went into the middle in the second quarter he gave us a real lift in particular.

Q: Blaine Johnson was really important again and played well, but he plays on the edge. Is that when he's at his best though?
A: He was really important and he has been all year. He played for most of the game on one of their real good rebounders Lester-Smith and was able to really hurt them on the scoreboard, which was a positive for us. We're certainly not making excuses, but Hams, Schloithe and Johnson are three fairly quality players that were really important for us in the early part of the year when we were playing well. We've got them all back in now and obviously Schloithey and Hamsy will be better for the run but they are good players and their composure with the ball certainly helps.

Q: You had some horror turnovers in the back half early on, how important was Hams off half-back to give you that bit of quality?
A: We know he's a pretty good decision-maker and ball user, but to be fair to the other guys the two turnovers you are talking about, one was Higgins who is the ruckman and the other one was Pullman who is the full-back. Most of our other guys we like to set up attack off half-back with and it probably has been a strength for us when we've been playing well.

Q: Trip to Carnarvon now this week, do you have to do much different as a result?
A: Not really. We'll train as usual Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and fly up on Friday lunch time. The difference for a lot of our guys is that they might not have had to get on a plane, travel and stay away the day before a game. So we'll work out what they eat at the hotel the night before and what they do on the morning to fill in the time. It's a learning experience and it will be good for us.