Full buy in by playing group key to Bulldogs' success

TODD Curley savoured seeing his old AFL club the Western Bulldogs breakthrough for a premiership in 2016 and saw plenty that South Fremantle can now take from that heading into the 2017 WAFL season.

Curley is now entering his third season as South Fremantle coach and the growth has been obvious with a building year in 2015 and then in 2016 the Bulldogs finished the home and away season in second position, beat West Perth in a qualifying final and ended up playing three finals in their first September appearance since 2011.

He was happy with the growth of the group even if the finals losses to grand finalists Subiaco and Peel Thunder didn’t go to plan.

But the former Western Bulldogs AFL defender then watched on with pride as he saw his old team break their drought and win the premiership last September.

Curley played 115 games with the Bulldogs and while personally it was an exciting moment, what he learned even more that he can bring back to his South Fremantle player is what you can achieve if you play as a team.

The key to the Western Bulldogs' success was their ability to play as a unit and to have 22 players all making valuable contributions. Curley will now look to ensure that's the way South Fremantle performs throughout 2017 and it will take a full buy in from the entire playing group.

"We speak about that with our players all the time and to our players' credit, they have really taken that on board and bought into it. They now talk about it all the time," Curley said.

"They don’t need to be a superstar, they just need to play their role together. They have really bought into that and we just need to keep improving, but everyone else is trying to do the same."

The improvements South Fremantle made in 2016 were obvious and saw them finish one game from what would have been a first grand final appearance since 2009.

Curley hopes that taste of success spurs on the group to achieve even more in 2017.

"Moving forward, we have worked hard on building the way we want to play so that won't change a lot but we will look to improve facets of it," he said.

"There has been quite a lot of change to our list over the past two years but we think the majority of our players will now stay together for 2017 and hopefully the little taste they had of finals footy this year will drive them to want to play more and more, and improve more and more."

Having played over 100 games with the club including the losing preliminary finals to Adelaide in 1997 and 1998, Curley will always have a strong connection to the Western Bulldogs.

He was there at the MCG on AFL grand final day to see their historic win over the Sydney Swans and he couldn’t help but get caught up in the emotion.

"On a personal note, it was a great finish to the year to see the Western Bulldogs win the AFL premiership. It was a fantastic game as well and it's just fantastic for the supporters of the club and the people who volunteer, and have worked there for a long time," he said.

"To be able to go back to the function after the game and see all those familiar faces that were working so hard when I was there who are still there, and to see them enjoy a premiership was very enjoyable."

Curley was part of a very good Western Bulldogs team in the late 1990s with the 1997 preliminary final loss to the Crows particularly tough to take.

But he was there last year with a lot of his teammates from those games and they made sure they savoured the success the current players had achieved.

"Everyone was feeling the same and was so happy that the club had actually won one to move forward from that long drought. That run of losing prelims was hanging over the club but now they can move past that," Curley said.

"The great thing and lesson about the guys that played in the side this year was that there was a lot of so-called no names in the team. But the best team won the grand final on the day.

"They were the most even team and generally when you are that, you are going to be successful. It was fantastic for them."